FIGURE 4.
PMCA amplification of hamster-adapted prion strains. Brain extracts from terminally ill HY (A), DY (B), 139H (C), and SSLOW (D) hamsters were serially diluted in brain homogenates from healthy animals and submitted to one PMCA round. Previous to PMCA, an aliquot of the PrPSc-substrate mixture was separated and kept frozen (non-amplified control). All samples were treated with PK before WB, with the sole exception of NBH (normal brain homogenate) representing PrPC and used as a control of electrophoretic mobility. First well to the left of each membrane represents a 0.2% of PrPSc-containing brain homogenate. Following wells correspond to 2-fold serially diluted aliquots. Horizontal lines at the right of each blot represent ∼36-kDa molecular weight markers.