Experimental infection of bovine spongi-form encephalopathy in guinea pigs: clinical symptoms, pathohistology and immunohistochemistry

Abstract

Prion diseases are infectious neurodegenerative diseases affecting humans and animals that are invariably fatal and have no currently available prevention or treatment methods. These diseases are also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), characterized by similar neurological disorders, vacuolization of the neuroparenchyma, accumulation of the pathogenic isoform of the prion protein in it, the absence of an immunological response to the pathogen, and the inevitable death. The most famous of them is the classic bovine spongiform encephalopathy, because. has unprecedented social and economic consequences. C-BSE of cattle is also dangerous for humans, causing one of the forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, leading to a gradual progression of irreversible C-BSE lesions, leading to the death of a sick person. Laboratory animal models make a huge contribution to the study of the biological properties of prions and the diseases they cause. Thus, mouse models of prion infections have played a major role in deciphering fundamental questions of prion biology and assessing the potential transmissibility of neurodegenerative diseases. However, despite the economic acceptability and other positive properties of this model, it has a number of disadvantages. It produces low-volume tissue samples, and it is very difficult to obtain the required volume of serum and cerebrospinal fluid for many studies. Therefore, the search for and study of the disease in new models of laboratory animals sensitive to bovine C-BSE is of great scientific importance in the study of prion diseases. This work shows that during experimental intracerebral infection of guinea pigs with the causative agent of classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy, they are 100% sensitive to the pathogen. The clinical picture of the disease, developing severe pathomorphological changes in all parts of the brain with vacuolization of neurons and neropil and massive deposition of the prion protein PrPSc are described. Guinea pigs can be a highly sensitive object for laboratory study of the causative agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.