Antibodies to a scrapie prion protein.
Scrapie is a slow infection of the nervous system which progresses in the absence of any apparent immune response. The recent development of a large-scale purification protocol for scrapie prions made it possible to obtain substantial quantities of electrophoretically purified prion protein (PrP 27-30) and we report here on the successful production of a rabbit antiserum to PrP 27-30. The antiserum reacted with PrP 27-30 and several lower molecular weight proteins as shown by Western blots; it did not react with protein preparations from uninfected brains. Discrete structures in the subependymal region of scrapie-infected hamster brains were stained immunocytochemically. These same structures also stained with Congo red dye and showed green birefringence with polarized light, a characteristic of purified prion rods. This staining pattern suggests that they are amyloid plaques.
D000682:Amyloid / Q000276:immunology; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000382:microbiology*; D006224:Cricetinae; D004805:Ependyma / Q000382:microbiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000382:microbiology; D011328:Prions / Q000276:immunology*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000276:immunology*
D000682:Amyloid; D011328:Prions; D014764:Viral Proteins