The Antemortem Detection and Conformational Switches of Prion Proteins
Abstract
Blood from animals with prion disease contain low levels of prion infectivity, which primarily resides in the "buffy coat" fraction that contains lymphocytes and mononuclear cells. We believe that detecting individual infected white blood cells (WBCs) may increase the detection sensitivity by over 100-fold when compared with a method using pooled cells. We have developed a method that combines WBC isolation and cell blotting of PrP(Sc) to detect individual cells that contain PrP(Sc). A sensitivity study shows that as low as 10 to 50 prion-infected cells can be detected, suggesting that it may have the potential to be used for the antemortem detection of prion infection in blood.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA446422
Entities
People
- David R. Schubert
- Roland Riek
- Yuanbin Liu
Organizations
- Salk Institute for Biological Studies