Four Independent Molecular Prion Protein Parameters for Discriminating New Cases of C, L, and H Bovine

In anticipation of the emergence of more variants of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a semiquan-titative display of the following four independent molecular diagnostic prion parameters was designed: N terminus, proteinase K (PK) resistance, glycoprofile, and mixed population. One H BSE case, three L BSE cases, six C BSE cases, and one unusual classical BSE (C BSE) case are reported. The epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United Kingdom and other countries, with the subse-quent emergence of a variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob dis-ease in humans, had urged the European Union (EU) in 2001 to take costly measures by active monitoring cattle for BSE and banning the recycling of mammalian offal proteins into feed (8). Eight years later, due to the effectiveness of the control measures taken, new BSE cases rarely occur. It has become evident that atypical BSE types exist in cattle (2, 5). These variants seem to be sporadic, and all occurred in animals 8 years and older (2–7, 10, 13–15, 17–19, 1–23), excep