Diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy: A review

Cows affected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) display chronic n eurological signs consisting of behavioural changes, abnormalities of postu re and movement, and/or hyperaesthesia. At present, there are no laboratory test available to diagnose BSE in the live animal. In this article, we des cribe the post-mortem diagnostic examination of brains from BSE-suspected c attle as currently performed at ID-Lelystad. The routine laboratory diagnos is of BSE consists of histopathological examination of the brain and detect ion of the modified prion protein, prp(BSE), in brain tissue. These tests, however, have the disadvantage of being laborious and time consuming, so th at results are available only after several days. Recently, at ID-Lelystad a new post-mortem test has been developed that ena bles screening of larger volumes of brain samples for prpBSE within 1 day. This BSE test is especially suited for slaughterline monitoring. A prelimin ary validation study has shown that both sensitivity and specificity are 10 0% compared to the gold diagnostic standard of histopathology.