Evidence of effective scrapie transmission via colostrum and milk in sheep

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• published: 16 Oct 2013
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Additional File 2 Konold et al. BMC Veterinary Research 2013, 9:99 Timm Konold, S Jo Moore, Susan J Bellworthy, Linda A Terry, Leigh Thorne, Andrew Ramsay, F Javier Salguero, Marion M Simmons and Hugh A Simmons http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/9/99 Evidence for scrapie transmission from VRQ/VRQ ewes to lambs via milk was first reported in 2008 but in that study there were concerns that lateral transmission may have contributed to the high transmission rate observed since five control lambs housed with the milk recipients also became infected. This report provides further information obtained from two follow-up studies, one where milk recipients were housed separately after milk consumption to confirm the validity of the high scrapie transmission rate via milk and the second to assess any difference in infectivity from colostrum and subsequent milk. Protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) was also used to detect prion protein in milk samples as a comparison with the infectivity data and extended to milk samples from ewes without a VRQ allele. This study concluded that feeding of milk from scrapie-affected sheep results in a high transmission rate in VRQ/VRQ sheep and both colostrum and milk transmit scrapie. Detection of scrapie prion protein in individual milk samples from scrapie-affected ewes confirms PMCA as a valuable in vitro test. Additional file 2: Female Cheviot VRQ/VRQ milk recipient, 07--1092, examined at 22 months of age. It displays a fine head tremor (note the fine movements of the ears), alopecia on the poll and a positive scratch test (nibbling of the wall when scratched) suggestive of scrapie at clinical end-point.