Prion transmissibility

[Duane James Funk]

In <DBpuDt.3JF at rockyd.rockefeller.edu> Sean Stevens <stevens at rockvax.rockefeller.edu> writes:


>Just out of curiosity-I was under the impression that the mad cow 
>disease in Great Britain was derived from cattle feed that was found
>to be contaminated with ground up carcasses of sheep that had scrapie.
>Does this suggest that the transmission was via GI/bloodstream?


This is in fact true.  The cattle got BSE from sheep offal.  The 
transmission must then involove the blood at some point (thanks to Azeem 
Ansari for pointing this out to me).  
	To say however that free prions are floating around in the blood 
makes some sense, PSAs are obviously there.  But at what concentration? 
And how effective would blood-blood transmission route be?

-- 
__________________________________________________________________
                                Duane                  
	University of Manitoba; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
                      umfunk15 at cc.umanitoba.ca