Figure 1. Biochemical analysis of PrP^Sc in the CNS.

A) Western Blot analysis for PrP^Sc (frontal cortex) of vCJD, BSE and sCJD infected animals. PrP^Sc could be demonstrated in the brains of preclinical vCJD and prion-diseased vCJD and BSE inoculated animals. In the vCJD cohort, PrP^Sc is detectable (using NaPTA) in subclinical state 40 weeks before onset of symptoms. sCJD inoculated macaques did not show PrP^Sc at any time point in cerebellum (data not shown) and frontal cortex in conventional as well as NaPTA enhanced Western blot. (* indicates prion-diseased animals). B) PrP^Sc-glycotype analysis demonstrates comparable glycotypes of vCJD and BSE when transmitted to primates. Densitometric measurement of relative band intensities for di-, mono- and unglycosylated form of PrP^Sc is shown in % of total signal. C) Quantification of PrP^Sc-signal shows initial exponential increase of PrP^Sc until 158 wpi when PrP^Sc levels off. Relative amounts of PrP^Sc are shown in arbitrary units as quantified in three independent experiments.