| 17823401 |
Nicholson EM, Kunkle RA, Hamir AN, Lebepe-Mazur S, Orcutt D: Detection of the disease-associated isoform of the prion protein in formalin-fixed tissues by Western blot. J Vet Diagn Invest. 2007 Sep;19(5):548-52.
Clinical signs of prion disease are not specific and include a variety of differential diagnoses. Serological tests and nucleic acid-based detection methods are not applicable to prion-disease-agent detection because of the unusual nature of the infectious agent. Prion-disease diagnosis is primarily conducted by means of immunodetection of the infectious agent, typically by at least 2 distinct procedures with immunohistochemistry and Western blot being the most informative. These approaches differ in the need for formalin-fixed and frozen or fresh tissue respectively. This work describes a method for the detection of the disease-associated isoform of the prion protein by Western blot using formalin-fixed tissues. The approach requires only minimal modification of existing Western-blot procedures and could readily be incorporated into existing detection schemes for confirmatory purposes when fresh or frozen tissues are unavailable. |
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