In other species: Mallard , chicken , Ring-necked pheasant , white-tufted-ear marmoset , macaques , crab-eating macaque , Rhesus monkey , dog , domestic ferret , domestic cat , puma , horse , pig , Arabian camel , deer , Eurasian elk , Western roe deer , red deer , Eastern wapiti , sika deer , Manchurian Wapiti , reindeer , black-tailed deer , white-tailed deer , American bison , goat , mouflon , sheep , eland , greater kudu , gemsbok , rabbit , golden hamster , domestic guinea pig , domestic yak , chital , fallow deer , cheetah , raccoon dog , bighorn sheep , blue antelope , Arabian oryx , scimitar-horned oryx , nyala , Spanish ibex , water buffalo , Japanese quail , Pyrenean chamois , Iberian red deer , Bank vole , American mink

Categories: Nervous system phene

Possibly relevant human trait(s) and/or gene(s)s (MIM numbers): 176640 (gene) , 245300 (trait)

Links to MONDO diseases:

• MONDO:0006825: kuru

Mendelian trait/disorder: unknown

Considered a defect: yes

Year key variant first reported: 2008

Cross-species summary: Spongiform encephalopathies are a class of fatal neurological diseases. Clinical signs are characteristic of a progressive degeneration of the central nervous system; they include pruritis, abnormalities of gait and recumbency. Death is inevitable. On post-mortem, brain histopathology shows a characteristic spongy appearance. The infectious agent is a modified form of a protein encoded by a gene in the host. The name given to this infectious particle is prion. The host gene is called the prion protein (PrP) gene, which is a normal part of the genome of mammals and chickens. Its polypeptide product, called cellular PrP(superscript C), is a naturally-occurring protein attached to the outer surface of neurones and some other cells. PrP(superscript C) appears to play a role in maintaining the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum, which are essential for balance and muscular function. The infectious agent, called scrapie PrP(superscript Sc), is a modifed form of PrP(superscript C), where the modifications involve glycosylation and the creation of intra-strand di-sulphide bonds. It is important to realise that these modifications involve no change in amino acid sequence. When PrP(superscript Sc) molecules enter a previously uninfected host, they convert the naturally occurring PrP(superscript C) molecules, produced by the host gene, into infectious PrP(superscript Sc) particles, which ultimately cause clinical signs in that animal, and which can spread to other animals, both horizontally (by infection) and vertically (by maternal transmission). In ruminants the disease has been called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle, scrapie in sheep and goats and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in cervids.

Species-specific name: Bovine spongiform encephalopathy; Mad Cow Disease

Species-specific symbol: BSE

Molecular basis: Richt and Hall (2008) "identified a novel mutation in the bovine prion protein gene (Prnp), called E211K, of a confirmed BSE positive cow from Alabama, United States of America. This mutation is identical to the E200K pathogenic mutation found in humans with a genetic form of CJD. This finding represents the first report of a confirmed case of BSE with a potential pathogenic mutation within the bovine Prnp gene. We hypothesize that the bovine Prnp E211K mutation most likely has caused BSE in “the approximately 10-year-old cow” carrying the E221K mutation." Won et al. (2020) "found a high rate of K211 somatic mutations of the bovine PRNP gene in the medulla oblongata of three Holsteins (10% ± 4.4%, 28% ± 2%, and 19.55% ± 3.1%). In addition, in silico programs showed that the K211 somatic mutation was damaging. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate K211 somatic mutations of the bovine PRNP gene that are associated with potential BSE progression."
Ren et al. (2024) “simultaneously edited three genes in bovine fibroblasts. A knockout of MSTN and PRNP was created and the amino acid Q-G in CD18 was precisely substituted [in the fibroblasts].”

Genetic engineering: Unknown
Have human generated variants been created, e.g. through genetic engineering and gene editing

Prevalence: Heaton et al. (2008): "The K211 allele was not detected in 6062 cattle, including those from five commercial beef processing plants (3892 carcasses) and 2170 registered cattle from 42 breeds. Multiple nearby polymorphisms in Prnp coding sequence of 1456 diverse purebred cattle (42 breeds) did not interfere with scoring E211 or K211 alleles. Based on these results, the upper bounds for prevalence of the E211K variant was estimated to be extremely low, less than 1 in 2000 cattle (Bayesian analysis based on 95% quantile of the posterior distribution with a uniform prior)."

Associated gene: