[Methods for diagnosis of prion diseases].

The epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United Kingdom, its related occurrence of a new type of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease and proven cases of this type of the disease transmitted by blood transfusion initiated intensive studies to develop a inexpensive, prompt, and sensitive method for the early lifetime diagnosis of prion diseases. This would permit initiation of the timely treatment of the patients and prevention of contamination of foodstuffs. However, despite significant progress made in this direction, this objective has not yet been achieved.

Isolation and characterization of full-length recombinant cattle PrPC protein.

Full-length Bos taurus PrPC protein was obtained in the eu- and prokaryotic expression systems. Immunoblotting and indirect enzyme immunoassay demonstrated high specificity and antigenic activity of full-length proteins in the reactions with monoclonal antibodies (anti-SAF-32 and VRQ-84). Membrane location of recombinant PrPC protein in insect cells was shown by immunofluorescent analysis.