Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases, are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders of human and animals. In human, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is divided into four different forms; sporadic, familial, iatrogenic,...
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases, are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders of human and animals. In human, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is divided into four different forms; sporadic, familial, iatrogenic, and variant CJD. In case of iatrogenic CJD, infectious agent is transmitted to other people via CJD-contaminated surgical tools, injection of pituitary-derived hormones and dura mater transplantation from CJD-infected people, and so on. In addition, new variant CJD (vCJD) is believed to be resulted from the consumption of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-infected beef. There is also growing concerns about the transmissibility of CJD via human plasma products. Therefore, it is necessary to devise reliable validation test for guaranteeing the safety of human plasma products and to produce effective anti-prion protein (PrP) antibodies for detecting prion agents more precisely. In this study, we performed validation test in the manufactural processes of human plasma products and demonstrated that infectious prion agents added in plasma was sufficiently reduced in the manufactural processes of immunoglobulin and albumin products using western blot analysis and bioassay. The developed 3F10 and 5B7 antibodies were prion protein-specific. 3F10 antibody recognizes the prion protein of hamster, mice and rat. And 5B7 antibody recognizes those of hamster, mice, human, bovine and deer. The epitopes of 3F10 and 5B7 antibodies were residues 137-145 and 97-125 of hamster prion protein, respectively.