Figure 3.
Symptom onset (Incubation times) and survival in scrapie infected C57BL/6 mice treated with polyclonal anti-LRP antibody W3 and preimmune serum. C57BL/6 mice were intraperitoneally inoculated with RML prions one week after the first antibody/preimmune serum injection and monitored for the occurrence of characteristic TSE symptoms. Symptom onset (Incubation times) represents the time span from the day of RML inoculation until the day one of the four symptoms appear: ataxia of gait, tremor, difficulty righting from a supine position and occurance of rigidity in the tail.25 Survival represents the time span from the day one of the four symptoms occurs until the day mice show two of the four TSE-relevant symptoms over three days.25 At this time point, mice were sacrificed. (A) Kaplan-Meier curve (symptom onset) showing percent of animals free of symptoms dependent from days post RML inoculation. 20% of the W3 treated animals revealed a prolonged symptom onset compared to the preimmune serum control group (p < 0.2). (B) Kaplan-Meier curve (symptom onset plus survival) showing percent of animals alive dependent from days post RML inoculation. (C) Survival (days) of W3 and preimmune serum treated animals. The median revealed a 1.8-fold prolonged survival for the W3 treated group compared to the control group injected with preimmune serum (p < 0.19) (mean + SD).