Transgenic mouse brains for the evaluation and quality control of BSE tests.

Rapid BSE tests are widely used diagnostics in veterinary medicine and more than 11 million tests are applied worldwide. The evaluation of new rapid BSE tests and the quality assurance of approved BSE tests pose a challenge owing to the natural scarcity of BSE-infected bovine brainstems and regional variations in prion titer. Transgenic mice expressing bovine prion protein (Tg4092) offer an alternative approach to these problems.