Expression of selected genes isolated from whole blood, liver and obex in lambs with experimental classical scrapie and healthy controls, showing a systemic innate immune response at the clinical end-stage.

Background: Incubation period, disease progression, pathology and clinical presentation of classical scrapie in sheep are highly dependent on PRNP genotype, time and route of inoculation and prion strain. Our experimental model with pre-colostrum inoculation of homozygous VRQ lambs has shown to be an effective model with extensive PrP dissemination in lymphatic tissue and a short incubation period with severe clinical disease. Serum protein analysis has shown an elevation of acute phase proteins in the clinical stages of this experimental model, and here, we investigate changes in gene expression in whole blood, liver and brain.

Experimental infection of cattle with ovine Dichelobacter nodosus isolates.

Background: Dichelobacter nodosus is the main causative agent of ovine footrot, and there are strong indications that the bacterium can be transferred to cattle grazing on the same pasture as sheep. The aim of this study was to investigate if benign and virulent D. nodosus strains isolated from sheep can be transferred to the interdigital skin of cattle under experimental conditions.

Investigation of serum protein profiles in scrapie infected sheep by means of SELDI-TOF-MS and multivariate data analysis.

Background: Classical scrapie in sheep is a fatal neurodegenerative disease associated with the conversion PrPC to PrPSc. Much is known about genetic susceptibility, uptake and dissemination of PrPSc in the body, but many aspects of prion diseases are still unknown. Different proteomic techniques have been used during the last decade to investigate differences in protein profiles between affected animals and healthy controls.

Presence of an acute phase response in sheep with clinical classical scrapie.

Background: Work with experimental scrapie in sheep has been performed on-site for many years including studies on PrPSc dissemination and histopathology of organs and tissues both at preclinical and clinical stages. In this work serum was sampled at regular intervals from lambs which were infected immediately after birth and from parallel healthy controls, and examined for acute phase proteins. In contrast to earlier experiments, which extensively studied PrPSc dissemination and histopathology in peripheral tissues and brain, this experiment is focusing on examination of serum for non-PrPSc markers that discriminates the two groups, and give insight into other on-going processes detectable in serum samples.

Detection of PrP(Sc) in rectal biopsy and necropsy samples from sheep with experimental scrapie.

Scrapie diagnosis is based on the demonstration of disease-associated prion protein (PrP(Sc)) in brain or, in the live animal, in readily accessible peripheral lymphoid tissue. Lymphatic tissues present at the rectoanal line were readily obtained from sheep without the need for anaesthesia. The presence of PrP(Sc) in such tissue was investigated in sheep infected orally with scrapie-infected brain material.