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The new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease accounts for no relative increase of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mortality rate in the United Kingdom; this fits ill with the new variant being the consequence of consumption of food infected with the agent of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

ABSTRACT: A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was described in the United Kingdom. It is often claimed that it is caused by consumption of food infected with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. However, this remains open to question because the number of cases of the variant is, at the present time, less than would be expected from a major food-borne source.The EUROCJD cooperative study presents currently available epidemiological data of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and its new variant, for nine European countries plus Australia and Canada. Unexpectedly, for the United Kingdom where all but a few cases of the new variant have been reported, these cases have to be included in the incidence curve of the sporadic forms of the disease in order to obtain the best fit with the median curve from all the countries. This variant could be merely a rare clinical phenotype within the sporadic disease. The published clinical and experimental data which suggest that it is linked with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, lead us to propose that this link could be a common etiological origin other than consumption of bovine infected food. In any case, public health recommendations hold and further investigation is required.The lack of a relative increase of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob-disease mortality rate in the United Kingdom, does not fit well with the new variant being the consequence of consumption of food infected with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopthy.

SUBMITTER: Laprevotte I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC184443 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease accounts for no relative increase of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mortality rate in the United Kingdom; this fits ill with the new variant being the consequence of consumption of food infected with the agent of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

Laprevotte Ivan I Hénaut Alain A

BMC public health 20030806

<h4>Background</h4>A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was described in the United Kingdom. It is often claimed that it is caused by consumption of food infected with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. However, this remains open to question because the number of cases of the variant is, at the present time, less than would be expected from a major food-borne source.<h4>Discussion</h4>The EUROCJD cooperative study presents currently available epidemiological data of Creutzfeldt ...[more]

PMID: 12901737

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Project description:The biochemical and neuropathological properties of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) prions are faithfully maintained upon transmission to guinea pigs. However, primary and secondary transmissions of BSE and vCJD in guinea pigs result in long incubation periods of ?450 and ?350 days, respectively. To determine if the incubation periods of BSE and vCJD prions could be shortened, we generated transgenic (Tg) mice expressing guinea pig prion protein (GPPrP). Inoculation of Tg(GPPrP) mice with BSE and vCJD prions resulted in mean incubation periods of 210 and 199 days, respectively, which shortened to 137 and 122 days upon serial transmission. In contrast, three different isolates of sporadic CJD prions failed to transmit disease to Tg(GPPrP) mice. Many of the strain-specified biochemical and neuropathological properties of BSE and vCJD prions, including the presence of type 2 protease-resistant PrPSc, were preserved upon propagation in Tg(GPPrP) mice. Structural modeling revealed that two residues near the N-terminal region of ?-helix 1 in GPPrP might mediate its susceptibility to BSE and vCJD prions. Our results demonstrate that expression of GPPrP in Tg mice supports the rapid propagation of BSE and vCJD prions and suggest that Tg(GPPrP) mice may serve as a useful paradigm for bioassaying these prion isolates. IMPORTANCE:Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) prions are two of the prion strains most relevant to human health. However, propagating these strains in mice expressing human or bovine prion protein has been difficult because of prolonged incubation periods or inefficient transmission. Here, we show that transgenic mice expressing guinea pig prion protein are fully susceptible to vCJD and BSE prions but not to sporadic CJD prions. Our results suggest that the guinea pig prion protein is a better, more rapid substrate than either bovine or human prion protein for propagating BSE and vCJD prions.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Prions, the infectious agents responsible for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, consist mainly of the misfolded prion protein (PrP(Sc)). The unique mechanism of transmission and the appearance of a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which has been linked to consumption of prion-contaminated cattle meat, have raised concerns about public health. Evidence suggests that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease prions circulate in body fluids from people in whom the disease is silently incubating. METHODS:To investigate whether PrP(Sc) can be detected in the urine of patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, we used the protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) technique to amplify minute quantities of PrP(Sc), enabling highly sensitive detection of the protein. We analyzed urine samples from several patients with various transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (variant and sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and genetic forms of prion disease), patients with other degenerative or nondegenerative neurologic disorders, and healthy persons. RESULTS:PrP(Sc) was detectable only in the urine of patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and had the typical electrophoretic profile associated with this disease. PrP(Sc) was detected in 13 of 14 urine samples obtained from patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and in none of the 224 urine samples obtained from patients with other neurologic diseases and from healthy controls, resulting in an estimated sensitivity of 92.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 66.1 to 99.8) and a specificity of 100.0% (95% CI, 98.4 to 100.0). The PrP(Sc) concentration in urine calculated by means of quantitative PMCA was estimated at 1×10(-16) g per milliliter, or 3×10(-21) mol per milliliter, which extrapolates to approximately 40 to 100 oligomeric particles of PrP(Sc) per milliliter of urine. CONCLUSIONS:Urine samples obtained from patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease contained minute quantities of PrP(Sc). (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and others.).

Dataset Information

The new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease accounts for no relative increase of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mortality rate in the United Kingdom; this fits ill with the new variant being the consequence of consumption of food infected with the agent of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

Publications

The new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease accounts for no relative increase of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mortality rate in the United Kingdom; this fits ill with the new variant being the consequence of consumption of food infected with the agent of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

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