Scrapie Agent에 감염된 마우스 및 햄스터에서 Proteinase Resistant Protein의 검출

Scrapie agent causes a slow degenerative neurological disease in sheep and goats. The Proteinase Resistant Protein(PrP ), molecular marker of this disease, is found abnormally in scrapie infected animal and human with similar disorder like Kuru, CJD and GSS. PrP is found both in normal and scrapie infected animal but normal PrP, designated by PrP, is completely degraded by proteinase K(PK) while PrP from infected mouse is resistant to PK treatment. We succeeded in purification and detection of PrP from scrapie infected rodents(87V, ME7 in mice and 263K, 139H in hamster) using anti-ME7 antisera. The number of PrP polypeptide are different one another depending on scrapie agent strain and experimental animal species suggesting that certain specific structural and molecular properties of scrapie agents and some piculiar modification steps are involved in the processing of this disease. This experiment can be used as diagnostic rnethod.