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Pathogenesis of experimental BSE in cattle

Project Code: M03011

25/05/2010

Veterinary Laboratories Agency, New Haw
Hawkins, S

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a scrapie-like or ‟prion‟ disease of domestic cattle that was first recognised in Great Britain in 1986. It has provided a precedent among such diseases in its occurrence as a nationwide food-borne epidemic originating from contamination of commercially processed feed with a scrapie-like agent.
Assumptions based on the development of disease (pathogenesis) of natural scrapie of sheep and the putative sheep scrapie origins of BSE have been made in constructing a control strategy for BSE. Measures have included the removal of prescribed offals from all slaughtered cattle to prevent potential contamination of human or animal food. However, mouse bioassay has failed to detect infectivity in tissues of the lymphoreticular system of naturally-infected BSE cattle questioning the hypothesis of a close similarity between the pathogenesis of BSE and natural scrapie.

Final report

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