Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0030552 (paresis)
 5,831 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This study, initiated in June 1987, describes the epidemiology of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a recently described novel neurological disease of domestic cattle first identified in Great Britain in November 1986. Records suggested that the earliest suspected cases occurred in April 1985. There was variability in the presenting signs and the disease course, but the majority of cases developed behavioural disorders, gait ataxia, paresis and loss of bodyweight; pruritus was not a predominant sign. The form of the epidemic was typical of an extended common source in which all affected animals were index cases. The use of therapeutic or agricultural chemicals on affected farms presented no common factors. Specific genetic analyses eliminated BSE from being exclusively determined by simple mendelian inheritance. Neither was there any evidence that it was introduced into Great Britain by imported cattle or semen. The study supports previous evidence of aetiological similarities between BSE and scrapie of sheep. The findings were consistent with exposure of cattle to a scrapie-like agent, via cattle feedstuffs containing ruminant-derived protein. It is suggested that exposure began in 1981/82 and that the majority of affected animals became infected in calfhood.
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PMID:Bovine spongiform encephalopathy: epidemiological studies. 321 47

The authors report spongy degeneration in experimental scrapie (second passage) in mice. The scrapie agent was originally isolated from Suffolk sheep imported from Canada and diagnosed histopathologically to be infected with scrapie by intracerebral inoculation into JCL/ICR mice. Ten female SIc/ICR mice, 4 weeks of age, were injected intracerebrally in the right frontal lobus with 20 microliter of 10(-1) or 10(-4) dilution of JCR/ICR mice brain homogenate involving scrapie agent. All animals showed signs of the advanced stages of the disease, clinically manifested by lassitude, arched backs, lethargy and paresis of hind quarters. They were sacrificed five to six months post inoculation, and sections of the brain and spinal cord were examined by light and electron microscopy. Focal symmetrical spongiform lesions were seen light microscopically in the cerebral mantle, thalamus, hypothalamus, midbrain, medulla oblongata, cerebellum and cervical mark. There was evidence that these lesions tended to be more intense in the mice inoculated a higher concentration of scrapie agent. Astrocytic proliferation was present in the deep layer of cerebral gray matter, white matter, corpus callosum, dorsal part of hippocampus and thalamus. No leukocytic infiltration was observed. Electron microscopically, the spongiform lesions were shown to be caused by vacuolation or swelling within the neuropil, and vacuolation and focal swelling in the neuronal perikaryon. The changes in the neuronal perikaryon were caused by enlargement of endoplasmic reticulum and cisterns of the Golgi apparatus, accompanied by spherical swelling of a part of the cytoplasm. The vacuolation near or within the neuron produced deformation of the cell contours and displacement of the nucleus.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:[Spongiform encephalopathy in mice inoculated with scrapie material of sheep origin]. 650 58

To determine if sheep scrapie agent(s) in the United States would induce a disease in cattle resembling bovine spongiform encephalopathy, 18 newborn calves were inoculated intracerebrally with a pooled suspension of brain from 9 sheep with scrapie. Half of the calves were euthanatized 1 year after inoculation. All calves kept longer than 1 year became severely lethargic and demonstrated clinical signs of motor neuron dysfunction that were manifest as progressive stiffness, posterior paresis, general weakness, and permanent recumbency. The incubation period was 14-18 months, and the clinical course was 1-5 months. The brain from each calf was examined for lesions and for protease-resistant prion protein. Lesions were subtle, but a disease-specific isoform of the prion protein was present in the brain of all calves. Neither signs nor lesions were characteristic of those for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
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PMID:Intracerebral transmission of scrapie to cattle. 813 96

Sub-acute transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or prion diseases are diseases of little known etiology. The origin of these diseases would appear to be an abnormal protease-resistant prion protein (PrP(res)) which would be infectious by directly inducing its defective conformation to the normal native protein (PrP(C)). This hypothesis does not account for certain aspects of TSEs, such as interference to superinfection: in laboratory animals, inoculation by means of an attenuated strain with a long incubation period protects against later infection by a very virulent strain with a short incubation period. The hypothesis is put forward that there exists a possibility of interference to superinfection between neurodegenerative diseases of unknown origin, thought to be similar to TSEs, and a later infection by a TSE. The study of this interference between bovine spastic paresis (BSP) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) could be used as a model for this hypothesis. BSP is a very rare disease among cattle, of unknown etiology; it is curable, in the very early stages, by using tryptophan and especially lithium, potentiated by copper and manganese. An etiology close to that of TSEs has been suggested on several occasions. If interference could be demonstrated between BSP and BSE, interesting data would be provided concerning the etiology, the pathogenesis and possibly the treatment and prevention of these diseases. Notably, such data could lead to the development of a treatment and a prevention with lithium and amino acids precursors of neuromediators (tryptophan, tyrosine, glutamic acid, etc.), as well as the developing of a vaccine to combat TSEs, especially BSE and scrapie.
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PMID:Hypothesis of interference to superinfection between bovine spastic paresis and bovine spongiform encephalopathy; suggestions for experimentation, theoretical and practical interest. 1497 1