High throughput assays for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (tse)
OwnerLaura MANUELIDISinventor
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Abstract
Stable cell lines which produce the pathological form of PrP after infection with the infectious agent for CJD provide a high throughput assay to identify suitable treatment protocols and compositions. The stable cell lines also provide rich source of infectious CJD agent. They also may be used to identify vaccine candidates. Co-culture of neuronal cells with cells to be tested for infection with a TSE agent also provides a high throughput method for identifying infected cells.
Claims12
A method to identify an agent potentially effective to treat TSE, the method comprising:
- (a) contacting with a candidate agent a co-culture comprising a mammalian neuronal cell line stably infected with a mammalian transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) agent and targeted living non-infected neuronal cells modified to be resistant to an antibiotic, wherein said stably infected cell line is infective to neuronal cells in co-culture therewith, and
- (b) measuring the effect of the candidate agent on the level of infection in the targeted neuronal cells,
- whereby an agent that decreases the level of infection in said targeted neuronal cells is identified as an agent potentially effective to treat TSE.
A method to determine the presence or absence of cells containing an infective TSE agent in a composition of which method comprises co-culturing said composition with a neuronal cell line receptive to TSE infection and determining the presence, absence, or level of PrP-res in said co-cultured neuronal cell line, whereby the presence of PrP-res in the neuronal cell line indicates the presence of a TSE infective agent containing cells in the composition tested.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.