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Science 7 July 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5783, pp. 92 - 94
DOI: 10.1126/science.1129051
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Reports

Presymptomatic Detection of Prions in Blood

Paula Saá,1,2 Joaquín Castilla,1 Claudio Soto1*

Prions are thought to be the proteinaceous infectious agents responsible for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). PrPSc, the main component of the infectious agent, is also the only validated surrogate marker for the disease, and its sensitive detection is critical for minimizing the spread of the disease. We detected PrPSc biochemically in the blood of hamsters infected with scrapie during most of the presymptomatic phase of the disease. At early stages of the incubation period, PrPSc detected in blood was likely to be from the peripheral replication of prions, whereas at the symptomatic phase, PrPSc in blood was more likely to have leaked from the brain. The ability to detect prions biochemically in the blood of infected but not clinically sick animals offers a great promise for the noninvasive early diagnosis of TSEs.

1 George and Cynthia Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research, Departments of Neurology, Neuroscience and Cell Biology, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX 77555–0646, USA.
2 Centro de Biología Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: clsoto{at}utmb.edu

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