Evidence for varied aetiologies regulating the transmission of prion disease: implications for understanding the heritable basis of prion incubation times.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) are a group of progressive fatal neurodegenerative disorders, triggered by abnormal folding of the endogenous prion protein molecule. The encoding gene is a major biological factor influencing the length of the asymptomatic period after infection. It remains unclear the extent to which the variation between quantitative trait loci (QTLs) reported in mouse models is due to methodological differences between approaches or genuine differences between traits. With this in mind, our approach to identifying genetic factors has sought to extend the linkage mapping approach traditionally applied, to a series of additional traits, while minimising methodological variability between them. Our approach allows estimations of heritabil

SUBMITTER: Iyegbe CO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2996284 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature