The interests in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and their application in stem cell therapy have contributed to a better understanding of the basic biology of the prochondrogenesis effect on bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSCs). We aimed at comparing the effect of autologous PRP with common chondrogenic induction agents (CCIAs) on the chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs. Rabbit BMSCs were isolat...

Lansbury and Caughey state in their Primer on prion proteins [1] “Mice lacking the PrP gene, first produced by Charles Weissmann and colleagues, are viable, but have altered neuronal function and develop neurological abnormalities later in life.” This statement is misleading. The PrP-knockout mice produced in our laboratory [2] do not show neurological abnormalities at any time and we have neve...

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has an important role in musculoskeletal surgery; however, it has been underutilized for accelerating the healing of abdominal wall defects in veterinary practice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the use of commercial polyester/cotton fabric (Damour) as a new composite mesh for the repair of experimentally induced abdominal wall defects in canine mode...

Prions are infectious agents causing fatal neurodegenerative diseases of humans and animals. In humans, these have sporadic, acquired and inherited aetiologies. The inherited prion diseases are caused by one of over 30 coding mutations in the human prion protein (PrP) gene (PRNP) and many of these generate infectious prions as evidenced by their experimental transmissibility by inoculation to l...

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or prion diseases, are fatal degenerative disorders of the central nervous system that affect humans and animals. Prions are nonconventional infectious agents whose replication depends on the host prion protein (PrP). Transmission of prions to cultured cells has proved to be a particularly difficult task, and with a few exceptions, their experimental p...

Scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) are prion diseases in ruminants with considerable impact on animal health and welfare. They can also pose a risk to human health and control is therefore an important issue. Prion protein (PrP) genetics may be used to control and eventually eradicate animal prion diseases. The PrP gene in sheep and other represen...

A postmortem case of an atypical form of dural graft associated Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is described. A 42 year old man developed progressive spastic paresis 163 months after a cadaveric dura mater graft. He presented with no myoclonus and very late occurrence of periodic synchronous discharges on EEG. The prion protein (PrP) gene was homozygous for methionine at the polymorphic codon 1...

Transgenic mice overexpressing approximately eightfold the mouse (Mo) prion protein (PrP) gene carrying the P102L mutation of GSS developed neurodegeneration between 150 and 300 days of age, while controls expressing the wild-type MoPrP-A transgene at the same level remained healthy. Mice overexpressing the wild-type MoPrP-A transgene were highly susceptible to inoculated mouse prions, exhibiti...

Transgenic mice that contain a proline to leucine mutation at amino acid 101 in the endogenous murine PrP gene have been produced by gene targeting. This line of mice was generated to model the mutation thought to be responsible for P102L GSS, a familial TSE disease in humans. Genetargeted 101LL mice showed no evidence of spontaneous TSE disease in their lifetime and were unable to transmit any...

Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) disease is a dominantly inherited prion disease associated with point mutations in the Prion Protein gene. The most frequent mutation associated with GSS involves a proline-to-leucine substitution at residue 102 of the prion protein, and is characterized by marked variability at clinical, pathological and molecular levels. Previous investigations of GSS P102...