May 19, 2008

 

Canadian researchers work on modified cattle feed against mad cow disease

 

 

Researchers from the University of Alberta (U of A) in Canada are currently working on a special kind of feed that could help thwart the dreaded mad cow disease in cattle.

 

Dr Nat Kav, an associate professor from the university's agriculture department, says the feed is to protect ruminants against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) by growing antibodies to the disease in plants they eat.

 

Kav and U of A biochemistry professor Michael James are working with Swiss researchers as part of the international effort to understand BSE.

 

BSE has set off a crisis to Canada's cattle industry five years ago, costing Canadian cattle farmers its worst financial loss.  BSE is said to cause brain damaging disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob in humans.

 

Cattle's immune systems do not detect the abnormal protein that causes the disease, so the animals do not produce antibodies to attack the folded protein that eats holes in the brain.

 

World renowned Swiss scientist Adriano Aguzzi managed to create antibodies to BSE using mice, and they have obtained some of these for this project, Kav explained.

 

Kav is working on transferring them into plants, while James is looking at the structure of the antibodies to see how they prevent the prion from suddenly becoming misshapen.

 

Kav said that though growing antibodies (or transplanting genetic material from one organism to another) is not a problem, antibodies preventing the protein from shifting its shape is their predicament.

 

In the long run, if the antibody is successful in fighting the rogue prion, the same process could be used to fight Alzheimer's, a related human brain disease, says Kav.

 

In the wake of Canada's BSE crisis, the province set up the Alberta Prion Institute to encourage research into the disease and the federal government established Prionnet, a new funding agency.

 

While BSE is spread through contaminated cattle feed, scientists are still trying to figure out how Creutzfeldt-Jakob is spread, whether through urine, faeces or just by mere touch, says Moore.