Production of cattle lacking prion protein

JA Richt, P Kasinathan, AN Hamir, J Castilla… - Nature …, 2007 - nature.com
JA Richt, P Kasinathan, AN Hamir, J Castilla, T Sathiyaseelan, F Vargas, J Sathiyaseelan…
Nature biotechnology, 2007nature.com
Prion diseases are caused by propagation of misfolded forms of the normal cellular prion
protein PrPC, such as PrPBSE in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and
PrPCJD in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. Disruption of PrPC expression in
mice, a species that does not naturally contract prion diseases, results in no apparent
developmental abnormalities,,,. However, the impact of ablating PrPC function in natural
host species of prion diseases is unknown. Here we report the generation and …
Abstract
Prion diseases are caused by propagation of misfolded forms of the normal cellular prion protein PrPC, such as PrPBSE in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and PrPCJD in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. Disruption of PrPC expression in mice, a species that does not naturally contract prion diseases, results in no apparent developmental abnormalities,,,. However, the impact of ablating PrPC function in natural host species of prion diseases is unknown. Here we report the generation and characterization of PrPC-deficient cattle produced by a sequential gene-targeting system. At over 20 months of age, the cattle are clinically, physiologically, histopathologically, immunologically and reproductively normal. Brain tissue homogenates are resistant to prion propagation in vitro as assessed by protein misfolding cyclic amplification. PrPC-deficient cattle may be a useful model for prion research and could provide industrial bovine products free of prion proteins.
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