Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Woodham Lane, New Haw, Addlestone, Surrey, KT15 3NB, UK.
Vet Res. 2011 May 18;42(1):65. doi: 10.1186/1297-9716-42-65.
Classical scrapie is a naturally transmitted prion disease of sheep and goats. Contaminated environments may contribute to the spread of disease and evidence from animal models has implicated urine, blood, saliva, placenta and faeces as possible sources of the infection. Here we sought to determine whether sheep naturally infected with classical scrapie shed prions in their faeces. We used serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) along with two extraction methods to examine faeces from sheep during both the clinical and preclinical phases of the disease and showed amplification of PrP(Sc) in 7 of 15 and 14 of 14 sheep respectively. However PrP(Sc) was not amplified from the faeces of 25 sheep not exposed to scrapie. These data represent the first demonstration of prion shedding in faeces from a naturally infected host and thus a likely source of prion contamination in the environment.
经典绵羊痒病是绵羊和山羊中一种天然传播的朊病毒病。受污染的环境可能会助长疾病的传播，动物模型的证据表明尿液、血液、唾液、胎盘和粪便可能是感染的来源。在这里，我们试图确定是否有自然感染经典绵羊痒病的绵羊会在粪便中排出朊病毒。我们使用连续的蛋白质错误折叠循环扩增（sPMCA）以及两种提取方法，分别在疾病的临床和临床前阶段检查了 15 只羊中的 15 只和 14 只羊的粪便，并分别在 7 只和 14 只羊的粪便中扩增了 PrP(Sc)。然而，在未接触痒病的 25 只羊的粪便中未扩增出 PrP(Sc)。这些数据首次证明了天然感染宿主粪便中朊病毒的排出，因此可能是环境中朊病毒污染的来源。
