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About the Authors:
Samia Hannaoui
Roles Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
Affiliations Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, Calgary Prion Research Unit, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Hermann M. Schatzl
Roles Writing - review & editing
Affiliations Calgary Prion Research Unit, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, Department of Comparative Biology and Experimental Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4972-8740
Sabine Gilch
Roles Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing
* E-mail: [email protected]
Affiliations Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, Calgary Prion Research Unit, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5923-3464Citation: Hannaoui S, Schatzl HM, Gilch S (2017) Chronic wasting disease: Emerging prions and their potential risk. PLoS Pathog 13(11): e1006619. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1006619
Editor: Heather L. True, Washington University School of Medicine, UNITED STATES
Published: November 2, 2017
Copyright: © 2017 Hannaoui et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This work was supported by grants from the Alberta Prion Research Institute (APRI) and the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (201600013, 201300027) and was performed within the framework of the Calgary Prion Research Unit (CPRU; APRI grant 201600010). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals by converting the cellular prion protein PrPC into aggregation-prone PrPSc. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease or transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of free-ranging and farmed cervids. CWD is highly contagious and transmitted through horizontal transmission enabled by the shedding of prions in excreta and their persistence in the environment. The disease is undergoing a dramatic spread across North America, has been found in South Korea, and, recently, has been identified for the first time in Europe in free-ranging reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) and moose in Norway.
CWD
CWD first appeared in North America in captive animals in 1969...