title: Prion protein gene sequence of Canada's first non-imported case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
abstract: In May 2003, Canada became the 22nd country outside of the United Kingdom to report a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an animal not known to be imported from a country with cattle previously affected by this fatal, transmissible prion disease. Despite extensive testing of thousands of other animals that may have been exposed to contaminated feed at the same time as the affected animal, no evidence has been found for other infections. This finding leaves room for conjectures that the single confirmed case arose spontaneously, perhaps (by analogy with human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) as a result of a somatic protein misfolding event or a novel germline mutation. Here we present DNA sequence data from the affected animal's prion protein coding sequence that argue definitively against the latter hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: National Microbiology Laboratory, Health Canada, Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health, Winnipeg, Canada. mike_coulthart@hc-sc.gc.ca
authors.forename: Michael B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Coulthart
authors.forename: Rhonda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mogk
authors.forename: Jason M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Rancourt
authors.forename: Deborah L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Godal
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Czub
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002170:Canada; D002417:Cattle; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D016643:Encephalopathy, Bovine Spongiform / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016254:Mutagenesis, Insertional; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011328:Prions / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017384:Sequence Deletion; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D011328:Prions; D004247:DNA