Blood Borne Prions Detected in Free Ranging White-Tailed Deer

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Devon Trujillo

Abstract or Description

Blood-borne Prions Detected in Free Ranging White-Tailed Deer

Devon J. Trujillo¹, Amy V. Nalls¹, Erin E. McNulty¹, Nathaniel D. Denkers¹, Samantha K. Scherner¹, Ethan P. Barton², Christopher A. Cleveland², Natalie Stilwell³, James M. Crum⁴, Daniel M. Grove⁵, Jeremy S. Dennison⁶, Jennifer R. Ballard⁷, Edward A. Hoover¹, Mark G. Ruder³ and Candace K. Mathiason¹

¹Dept. of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University

²Game Management Services Unit, Wildlife Resources Section, West Virginia Division of Natural Resource

³Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens, GA

⁴West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Elkin, WV,

⁵University of Tennessee Extension, Nashville,TN

⁶Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Jackson, TN

⁷Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Little Rock, AR

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a prion disease that infects captive and free ranging cervid species (deer, elk, moose and reindeer). Due to the highly transmissible and always fatal nature of CWD, antemortem methods to detect and monitor infectivity are becoming increasingly important. While prions have consistently been detected in blood throughout the course of disease, they are presumed to be present in small concentrations making detection difficult. Here, we used lipase iron oxide metal extraction and real-time quaking-induced conversion (IOME RT-QuIC) to assess the presence of amyloid seeding (prions) in buffy coat cells collected from free-ranging white-tailed deer in herds with high CWD prevalence from Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia. These whole blood samples were collected by collaborators from the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study and processed at Colorado State University. Our findings provide clear evidence for the presence of hematogenous prions in the wild native host, permitting antemortem CWD diagnosis. Additionally, IOME RT-QuIC of buffy coat cells from one deer was shown to detect prion seeding activity where it previously did not in other tissue types. These findings reveal CWD at different stages of disease, confirming assay reproducibility and highlighting the ability of our methods to detect CWD in healthy yet infected deer. This study is applicable to the further development of antemortem testing for prion and amyloid diseases affecting humans and animals.

Mentor

Dr. Candice Mathiason