Evidence for a novel strain of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Norwegian reindeer
Category: Research Poster
Author(s): Sarah Goerold
Presenter(s): Sarah Goerold
Mentors(s): Alyssa Hughes
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder that affects cervids, including deer, elk, moose, and reindeer. This disease is caused by prions, misfolded forms of the cellular prion protein that spread by converting PrPC into an abnormal, harmful form. While CWD is endemic to North America (NA), it was first detected in Europe in 2016 in a wild reindeer, raising the question of whether NA and Norwegian CWD have the same origin. To prevent this outbreak from becoming endemic like in NA, it is important to characterize the Nordic CWD isolates. To investigate this question, we transmitted NA and Norwegian reindeer CWD isolates to gene-targeted (Gt) mice expressing reindeer PrP and examined the resulting clinical, biochemical, and neuropathological properties. The time to clinical disease onset for Norwegian reindeer CWD isolates was slower than NA reindeer CWD and displayed an incomplete attack rate. Additionally, prions from Norwegian CWD showed less accumulation in the brain and affected different brain regions. Despite this, Western blots revealed the prion protein had similar molecular weights and banding patterns across the Norwegian and NA CWD isolates. These findings suggest that CWD affecting Norwegian reindeer may represent a distinct strain of the disease. Understanding these differences is important for predicting how CWD may spread in wildlife populations, transmit to humans, and guide monitoring efforts in emerging cases in Europe.