Pmca Screening of Retropharyngeal Lymph Nodes in White-Tailed Deer and Comparisons With ELISA and IHC

Authors

Rebeca Benavente
J Hunter Reed
Mitch Lockwood
Rodrigo Morales

Publication Date

11-17-2023

Journal

Scientific Reports

Abstract

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease affecting cervids. CWD diagnosis is conducted through enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) in retropharyngeal lymph nodes. Unfortunately, these techniques have limited sensitivity against the biomarker (CWD-prions). Two in vitro prion amplification techniques, real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC) and protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA), have shown promise in detecting CWD-prions in tissues and bodily fluids. Recent studies have demonstrated that RT-QuIC yields similar results compared to ELISA and IHC. Here, we analyzed 1003 retropharyngeal lymph nodes (RPLNs) from Texas white-tailed deer. PMCA detected CWD at a higher rate compared to ELISA/IHC, identified different prion strains, and revealed the presence of CWD-prions in places with no previous history. These findings suggest that PMCA exhibits greater sensitivity than current standard techniques and could be valuable for rapid and strain-specific CWD detection.

Keywords

Animals, Deer, Immunohistochemistry, Lymph Nodes, Prions, Wasting Disease, Chronic, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay

Comments

Supplementary Materials

Data Availability Statement

PMID: 37978312