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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, July 2005, p. 814-820, Vol. 12, No. 7
1071-412X/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/CDLI.12.7.814-820.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Bov-tA Short Interspersed Nucleotide Element Sequences in Circulating Nucleic Acids from Sera of Cattle with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Sera of Cattle Exposed to BSE

Chronix Biomedical GmbH, 37073 Göttingen, Germany,¹ Chronix Biomedical Inc., San Jose, California 95112,² Department of Neuropathology, University of Göttingen, 37075 Göttingen, Germany,³ Institute of Veterinary Medicine, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany⁴

Received 26 January 2005/ Returned for modification 25 March 2005/ Accepted 27 April 2005

Circulating nucleic acids (CNA) are known to be enriched in repetitive DNA sequences in humans. Here, bovine sera CNA were analyzed to determine if cell stress-related short interspersed nucleotide elements (SINEs) could be detected in sera from cattle associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Nucleic acids were extracted, amplified, cloned, and sequenced from the sera of protease-resistant prion protein (PrP^res)-positive cattle (n = 2) and sera from BSE-cohort cows (n = 6); 150 out of 163 clones revealed the presence of, on average, an 80-bp sequence from the 3' region of Bov-tA SINE. A PCR protocol was developed that differentially identified SINE-associated CNA in BSE-exposed versus normal cattle. CNA were extracted from a serum vesicular fraction after controlled blood collection and processing procedures. Sera from four confirmed cases of BSE, 137 BSE-exposed cohort animals associated with eight confirmed BSE cases, and 845 healthy, PrP^res-negative control cows were tested. All four sera from confirmed BSE cases were repeatedly reactive in the assay. BSE-exposed cohorts had a 100-fold higher occurrence of repeatedly reactive individuals per cohort (average = 63%; range = 33% to 91%), compared to healthy controls (average = 0.6%; P < 0.001). This study shows that BSE-confirmed and cohort animals possess a unique profile of SINE-associated serum CNA that can be utilized as a marker that highly correlates to BSE exposure.