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Ultrastructural changes in the progress of natural Scrapie regardless fixation protocol

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Abstract

Because few studies regarding ultrastructural pathological changes associated with natural prion diseases have been performed, the present study primarily intended to determine consistent lesions at the subcellular level and to demonstrate whether these changes are evident regardless of the fixation protocol. Thus far, no assessment method has been developed for classifying the possible variations according to the disease stage, although such an assessment would contribute to clarifying the pathogenesis of this neurodegenerative disease. Therefore, animals at different disease stages were included here. This study presents the first description of lesions associated with natural Scrapie in the cerebellum. Vacuolation, which preferentially occurs around Purkinje cells and which displays a close relation with glial cells, is one of the most novel observations provided in this study. The disruption of hypolemmal cisterns in this neuronal type and the presence of a primary cilium in the granular layer both represent the first findings concerning prion diseases. The possibility of including samples regardless of their fixation protocol is confirmed in this work. Therefore, a high proportion of tissue bank samples that are currently being wasted can be included in ultrastructural studies, which constitute a valuable source for information regarding physiological and pathological samples.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mario Soriano for his excellent technical support.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for Encephalopathies and Transmissible Emerging Diseases, University of Zaragoza, C/Miguel Servet 177, 50013, Saragossa, Spain

    Rocío Sarasa, Concepción Junquera, Juan José Badiola & Marta Monzón

  2. Cajal Institute, Spanish Research Council (CSIC), C/Dr Arce 37, Madrid, Spain

    Adolfo Toledano

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  1. Rocío Sarasa
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  2. Concepción Junquera
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  4. Juan José Badiola
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  5. Marta Monzón
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Correspondence to Marta Monzón.

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Sarasa, R., Junquera, C., Toledano, A. et al. Ultrastructural changes in the progress of natural Scrapie regardless fixation protocol. Histochem Cell Biol 144, 77–85 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-015-1314-6

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