Pilot William, Arifin Maria I, Staskevicius Antanas, Haley Nicholas J, Mitchell Gordon, Guan Jiewen
National and WOAH Reference Laboratory for Scrapie and CWD, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Ottawa, ON K2J 4S1, Canada.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Graduate Studies, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ 85331, USA.
Viruses. 2025 Aug 15;17(8):1121. doi: 10.3390/v17081121.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that targets cervids, has become a significant threat to both free-ranging and captive populations of Canadian white-tailed deer. In an effort to mitigate its spread, research in the past 20 years has demonstrated that the genetic background of deer may influence the pathogenesis of CWD. Specifically, variants located on the 95-, 96-, 116- and 226-codon of the prion protein gene seem to attenuate disease progression in white-tailed deer. The influence of these alleles on the likelihood of being found CWD-positive on Saskatchewan and Albertan farms was assessed using a Bayesian logistic regression model. To assess the presence of selection for favourable prion protein gene alleles, shifts in variant genotype frequencies were examined over the last seventeen years. Our results show that deer harboring the G96S allele have significantly lowered odds of infection within Canadian herds. Furthermore, the prevalence of this allele has increased significantly in farmed deer over the past seventeen years. Establishing the dynamic genetic background of Canadian deer populations will inform future disease management initiatives.
慢性消耗病（CWD）是一种针对鹿科动物的传染性海绵状脑病，已对加拿大白尾鹿的野生种群和圈养种群构成重大威胁。为了减缓其传播，过去20年的研究表明，鹿的遗传背景可能会影响CWD的发病机制。具体而言，位于朊病毒蛋白基因第95、96、116和226密码子上的变异似乎会减缓白尾鹿的疾病进展。使用贝叶斯逻辑回归模型评估了这些等位基因对在萨斯喀彻温省和艾伯塔省农场被检测出CWD呈阳性可能性的影响。为了评估对有利的朊病毒蛋白基因等位基因的选择情况，研究了过去十七年中变异基因型频率的变化。我们的结果表明，携带G96S等位基因的鹿在加拿大鹿群中的感染几率显著降低。此外，在过去十七年中，该等位基因在养殖鹿中的流行率显著增加。确定加拿大鹿群的动态遗传背景将为未来的疾病管理举措提供信息。
