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Chronic Wasting Disease Of Elk: Transmissibility To Humans Examined By Transgenic Mouse Models, Qingzhong Kong, Shenghai Huang, Wenquan Zou, Difernando Vanegas, Meiling Wang, Di Wu, Jue Yuan, Mengjie Zheng, Hua Bai, Huayun Deng, Ken Chen, Allen L. Jenny, Katherine I. O'Rourke, Ermais D. Belay, Lawrence B. Schonberger, Robert B. Pertersen, Man-Sun Sy, Shu G. Chen, Pierluigi Gambetti

Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a prion disease affecting free-ranging and captive cervids (deer and elk), is widespread in the United States and parts of Canada. The large cervid population, the popularity of venison consumption, and the apparent spread of the CWD epidemic are likely resulting in increased human exposure to CWD in the United States. Whether CWDis transmissible to humans, as has been shown for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (the prion disease of cattle), is unknown. We generated transgenic mice expressing the elk or human prion protein (PrP) in a PrP-null background. After intracerebral inoculation with elk CWD prion, two lines …