MICROBIO 140P Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Stanley B. Prusiner, Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy
21 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Bse bovine spongiform encephalopathy: transmissible, neurodegenerative disease affecting cattle, transmission occurs via the consumption of contaminated meat and bone meal in cattle feed, fatal, no known cure/treatment, infected tissues. Spinal cord, brain, retina, 3rd eyelid: prions infectious agent composed of protein material, folds in distinct ways which are transmissible to other prion proteins, leading to disease that is similar to viral infection. Not a virus, bacterium, fungus or protozoan. You can be born with a propensity for getting it or you can acquire it through diet. Genetic/developmental/environmental (non- infectious: alzheimers, parkinsons, huntingtons, cyctic fibrosis, sickle cell disease. Infectious: prion disease, agents of infectious disease. Viruses (hiv, ebola: agents of prion disease. Cattle cannibalism feeding cows mbm with beef protein, leading cause of bse. Scrapie (started in 1700s: fatal degenerative disease in sheep and goats. Bovine - cattle: form of spongiform encephalopathy. Spongiform sponge-like: not transmissible to humans.
