Taylor D M, Dickinson A G, Fraser H, Marsh R F
Neuropathol Appl Neurobiol. 1986 Mar-Apr;12(2):207-15. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2990.1986.tb00051.x.
Transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) is probably a form of the sheep disease, scrapie, introduced by accidentally feeding mink with scrapie-infected sheep tissues. Although no successful transmissions of TME to mice have been achieved previous work has involved various limitations. To maximize the possibility of transmission, 176 mice, representing 14 different genotypes mostly not previously tested with TME, were injected with TME-infected mink brain from three sources with different histories. No scrapie-like disease was detected clinically or histologically in these mice or in a further 111 which were subsequently injected with brain or spleen material from 10 of the TME-injected mice killed when senile. Furthermore, a series of experiments involving seven strains of scrapie, demonstrated that prior injection of mice with TME failed to affect the normal progress of scrapie infection indicating that TME agent had not occupied scrapie replication sites or otherwise influenced the pathogenesis of scrapie. The overall conclusion from these experiments is that TME is biologically inactive in mice. Although many strains of natural scrapie can be transmitted to laboratory mice, this has not been possible with all strains and it is concluded that one or more of such strains is likely to be the cause of TME in mink.
传染性水貂脑病（TME）可能是绵羊疾病羊瘙痒病的一种形式，是由于意外地用感染羊瘙痒病的绵羊组织喂养水貂而引发的。尽管此前尚未成功将TME传播给小鼠，但以往的研究存在各种局限性。为了最大限度地提高传播的可能性，对176只小鼠进行了注射，这些小鼠代表了14种不同的基因型，大多数此前未用TME进行过测试，它们被注射了来自三个具有不同病史来源的感染TME的水貂脑。在这些小鼠中，以及在随后注射了10只因衰老而处死的注射TME小鼠的脑或脾组织的另外111只小鼠中，均未在临床或组织学上检测到类似羊瘙痒病的疾病。此外，一系列涉及7种羊瘙痒病毒株的实验表明，预先给小鼠注射TME不会影响羊瘙痒病感染的正常进程，这表明TME病原体并未占据羊瘙痒病的复制位点，也未以其他方式影响羊瘙痒病的发病机制。这些实验的总体结论是，TME在小鼠中无生物学活性。尽管许多天然羊瘙痒病毒株可传播给实验室小鼠，但并非所有毒株都能做到这一点，因此得出结论，其中一种或多种这样的毒株可能是水貂TME的病因。
