Inactivation of the scrapie agent in a scaled-down procedure for the purification of gangliosides from brain tissue.

The inactivation of the scrapie agent in biologicals was evaluated on a scaled-down procedure currently in use on a large scale for the purification of gangliosides from bovine brain tissue. Residual infectivity was determined by an in vivo animal bio-assay using hamsters as the host species and the 263K strain as the reference agent. Infectivity was significantly diminished during the early stages of purification and infectivity was never detected in the final preparations. These results confirmed that a combination of chemicals or physical techniques known to affect the viability of the scrapie agent led to complete inactivation.