TY - JOUR AU - Gregori, Luisa AU - Kovacs, Gabor G. AU - Alexeeva, Irina AU - Budka, Herbert AU - Rohwer, Robert G. T1 - Excretion of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Infectivity in Urine T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2008 VL - 14 IS - 9 SP - 1406 SN - 1080-6059 AB - The route of transmission of most naturally acquired transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) infections remains speculative. To investigate urine as a potential source of TSE exposure, we used a sensitive method for detection and quantitation of TSE infectivity. Pooled urine collected from 22 hamsters showing clinical signs of 263K scrapie contained 3.8 ± 0.9 infectious doses/mL of infectivity. Titration of homogenates of kidneys and urinary bladders from the same animals gave concentrations 20,000-fold greater. Histologic and immunohistochemical examination of these same tissues showed no indications of inflammatory or other pathologic changes except for occasional deposits of disease-associated prion protein in kidneys. Although the source of TSE infectivity in urine remains unresolved, these results establish that TSE infectivity is excreted in urine and may thereby play a role in the horizontal transmission of natural TSEs. The results also indicate potential risk for TSE transmission from human urine–derived hormones and other medicines. KW - Prion KW - urine KW - TSE KW - kidney KW - bladder KW - endogenous infectivity KW - scrapie KW - hamster KW - limiting dilution titration KW - pathology KW - research DO - 10.3201/eid1409.080259 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/9/08-0259_article ER - End of Reference