Award details

Maternal transmission of scrapie in sheep

Reference	BBS/E/I/00000900
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Nora Hunter
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	218,295
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2001
End date	31/03/2007
Duration	72 months

Abstract

Maternal transmission has, for many decades, been implicated as one of the main routes by which sheep become infected with scrapie however hard supporting evidence and details of the rate of such transmission are both lacking. This proposal seeks to build on the results generated by a previous study (SE1823) in which infection with the experimental scrapie source, SSBP/1, was used in a complex matrix of treatments involving embryo transfer (ET) and caesarian derivation (CD) of lambs. SE1823 has provided evidence that under some circumstances, maternal transmission of scrapie can occur but SE1823 did not involve enough animals to give a reliable rate for such transmission and was also complicated by the occurrence of natural scrapie in the sheep at the same time. This new proposal is much simpler in design, using scrapie free New Zealand sheep challenged with SSBP/1 scrapie and producing lambs of a range of PrP genotypes left to gestate and be born naturally and involving enough animals to provide reliable information on the rate of maternal transmission for each genotype. The proposal , one of a continuing series of such studies at IAH, is directly relevant to the SEAC Sub group report on Research and Surveillance of TSEs in sheep, section r: experiments and fieldwork investigating maternal transmision of scrapie in sheep and will provide results of major importance for policy relating to control and eradication of all TSEs in sheep.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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