Scrapie infection in mice does not elicit a detectable humoral immune response using conventional techniques, distinguishing it from typical slow or persistent virus infections.
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Absence of detectable humoral response in scrapie mice leaves open prion immune evasion mechanisms; hypothesis-generating for diagnostics and therapies.
Although scrapie is clearly a transmissible disease caused by a small stable agent, previous conventional attempts to demonstrate humoral antibody have not met with success. In this study no evidence of humoral antibody to the scrapie agent was found in infected mice by regular or antiglobulin potentiated neutralization tests, indirect immunofluorescence tests employing various agent-containing targets, or by examining brains, spleens, and kidneys for the presence of immune complexes. The results suggest that scrapie infection is fundamentally different from slow or persistent virus infections in which humoral antibody may be demonstrated by the techniques used in this study.
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Porter et al. (1973) studied this question.
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