HighDesertSage
Well-known member
Read this article today and found it interesting:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190611102715.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190611102715.htm
Different strains of CWD for Deer/Elk.
- Thread starter HighDesertSage
- Start date
Hunting Wife
Well-known member
Cool. The mouse models have always been a hurdle. Glad they are making some progress.
COEngineer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2016
- Messages
- 1,510
I'm sure I don't understand this, but are they saying they created a CWD variant that infects a new species (mice)? If so, how many layers of security do they have to make sure it doesn't get outside the lab??
This topic scares me all the time
D
Deleted member 28227
Guest
Hunting Wife
Well-known member
No. They are basically making mice that express the same proteins that elk and deer do. A prion is just a type of protein- all mammals have their own type of prions that are encoded in our DNA. A prion disease is just a disease caused by a variant form of a normal prion protein. So the breakthrough of this research then is that they have created mice who produce these normal elk and deer prions. That allows them to study the effects of CWD on the actual deer and elk protein strains vs studying the effects of CWD on the mouse versions or other transgenic versions of that protein. Nothing about the CWD variant prion itself has changed.
Does that make more sense?
COEngineer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2016
- Messages
- 1,510
So they are making mice that produce elk/deer prions/proteins so they can infect them with CWD? These elkmice cannot reproduce? Or how do they keep them from spreading?
Hunting Wife
Well-known member
Yes, building mice so they can infect them with CWD.
They are captive engineered lab mice that live their lives under strict bio security to ensure they aren’t exposed to any pathogens prior to study, and experiments are done in BSL-2 or BSL-3 labs. They may or may not be able to breed-depends on the genes that have been manipulated. They certainly are not kept in an environment where they have unrestricted contact with other mice or are just breeding willy-nilly. Regardless, there is absolutely no difference between these mice and how they’ll be handled vs any of the billions of other transgenic mice that have been used for decades in all types of biomedical research, including on far more dangerous diseases than CWD. Bio security procedures are well established at this point.
They are captive engineered lab mice that live their lives under strict bio security to ensure they aren’t exposed to any pathogens prior to study, and experiments are done in BSL-2 or BSL-3 labs. They may or may not be able to breed-depends on the genes that have been manipulated. They certainly are not kept in an environment where they have unrestricted contact with other mice or are just breeding willy-nilly. Regardless, there is absolutely no difference between these mice and how they’ll be handled vs any of the billions of other transgenic mice that have been used for decades in all types of biomedical research, including on far more dangerous diseases than CWD. Bio security procedures are well established at this point.
COEngineer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2016
- Messages
- 1,510
Glad someone is confident in procedures
As for me, I will set a Google search alert for "zombie mice." J/K, I'm sure there are much scarier things that I should be worried about. Thanks for the education.
