FREQUENCIES OF PRP GENE VARIANTS IN HEALTHY CATTLE AND CATTLE WITH BSE IN SCOTLAND

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is one of a family of scrapie-l ike diseases which affect various mammals. Polymorphisms and mutations of the PrP gene have been associated with the incidence of experiment al and natural scrapie in other animals and this study of the bovine P rP gene was undertaken to discover whether there was a similar associa tion with PrP genotype in cattle with BSE. There are two known polymor phisms of the coding region of the bovine PrP gene, a silent HindII re striction site polymorphism and a difference in the number of an octap eptide repeated sequence (either five or six copies). An analysis of 3 70 cattle in Scotland revealed no difference between the frequencies o f these PrP genotypes in healthy cattle and cattle with BSE.