Journal of General Virology

Fig. 5. Accumulation of PrP^Sc in brains. Histoblots showing immunoreactive PrP^C in brain sections natively (upper row) and after digestion with increasing levels of proteinase K (second and third rows). Prnp^o/o mice (first column) show no immunoreactivity, while mock inoculated wild-type mice show proteinase K-sensitive PrP^C (second column), but no proteinase K-resistant PrP^Sc. Terminally sick i.n. or f.p. injected wild-type mice contained large amounts of both PrP^C and PrP^Sc (fourth and sixth columns). Terminally sick i.n. and f.p. injected tga20 mice accumulated PrP^Sc selectively in specific brain areas belonging to the sensory nervous system (thalamus) (third and fifth columns). The boxes indicate areas where material for Western blotting was obtained. (B) Western blot analysis of cortical areas of terminally sick i.n. or f.p injected wild-type and transgenic mice. The treatment and genotype of the mice corresponds to (A). No PrP^Sc was detected in the cortex of transgenic mice, while wild-type mice showed abundant cortical PrP^Sc. (C) Left side, histoblot [close-up from (A), second row third column] showing accumulation of PrP^Sc in the thalamus of an i.n. inoculated tga20 mouse. Right side, coronal section through a mouse brain (modified after Sidman et al., 1971). Asterisks indicate the posterior nucleus of the thalamus.

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