title: Surveillance of chronic wasting disease in sika deer, Cervus nippon, from Tokachi district in Hokkaido.
abstract: Surveillance of chronic wasting disease (CWD) was conducted by performing Western blot analysis of tissue samples from 136 sika deer (Cervus nippon) killed by hunters in the Tokachi district of Hokkaido Island. No prion protein (PrPSc) associated with CWD was detected in any of the samples. To assess amino acid polymorphisms of the sika deer PrP gene, nucleotide sequencing of the PrP gene was performed. The only amino acid polymorphisms detected were 3 silent mutations at nucleotide positions 63, 225 and 408. These results suggest that sika deer in the Tokachi district are genetically homogeneous, and are not infected with CWD.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Veterinary Public Health, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro, Hokkaido 080-8555, Japan.
authors.forename: Natsumi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kataoka
authors.forename: Masakazu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishimura
authors.forename: Motohiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Horiuchi
authors.forename: Naotaka
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ishiguro
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D015153:Blotting, Western / Q000662:veterinary; D003670:Deer; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D017354:Point Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011328:Prions / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000662:veterinary; D034081:Wasting Disease, Chronic / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D011328:Prions