Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Wisconsin Wildlife
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

The objective of the proposed research is to develop highly sensitive PMCA methods for testing soil and animal secretions/excreta for the presence of prions, specifically CWD. The proposed study will supplement funding from the National Science Foundation to develop PMCA methods for prion detection in deer secretions/excreta (feces and other tissues). We will test samples collected at the Hall Farm in Portage County, Wisconsin using cervidized transgenic Tg(CerPrP) mice to detect CWD prions from feces of infected animals from this premise. This project will contribute to the development of PMCA methods for detecting CWD prions in deer secretions/excreta. Development of these methods will provide a crucial tool for efficiently measuring the presence and abundance of prions in animal samples and will enhance our scientific ability to address important research on the role of the environmental as a reservoir and in transmission of CWD.