Organic Slant

  • Home
  • Shop
  • About
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Cartoons
  • Music
  • Links
  • Cancer
  • Environment
  • GMO’s
  • Health
  • Monsanto
  • Organic Foods
  • Super Foods
  • Fukushima
You are here: Home / Health / Researchers find infectious prions throughout eyes of patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Researchers find infectious prions throughout eyes of patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

December 13, 2018 by Captain Organic Planet

Researchers find infectious prions throughout eyes of patients with deadly sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a discovery that reveals both a biohazard and a potential diagnostic tool

By the time symptoms of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) are typically discovered, death is looming and inevitable. But, in a new study, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine with colleagues at the National Institutes of Health and UC San Francisco, report finding tell-tale evidence of the condition’s infectious agent in the eyes of deceased sCJD patients, making the eye a potential source for both early CJD detection and prevention of disease transmission.

Writing in the November 20 issue of the journal mBio, co-corresponding author Christina J. Sigurdson, DVM, PhD, professor of pathology at UC San Diego and UC Davis, and colleagues discovered high levels of prions in the eyes of 11 deceased patients, all with confirmed sCJD.

“Almost half of sCJD patients develop visual disturbances, and we know that the disease can be unknowingly transmitted through corneal graft transplantation,” said Sigurdson. “But distribution and levels of prions in the eye were unknown. We’ve answered some of these questions. Our findings have implications for both estimating the risk of sCJD transmission and for development of diagnostic tests for prion diseases before symptoms become apparent.”

Prions are misshapen forms of a normally harmless protein. It is not known what causes the normal prion protein to misfold and become pathogenic. In humans, prions accumulating in the brain produce lesions that can lead to rapidly progressive neurodegeneration. Patients commonly die within a year of diagnosis.

Sporadic CJD is the most common form of the disease (85 percent of cases); patients have no known risk factors. Hereditary CJD involves a genetic mutation associated with CJD, and approximately 10 to 15 percent of CJD cases in the United States are hereditary. In acquired CJD, the disease is transmitted by exposure to the brain or nervous system tissue, usually through certain medical procedures, such as corneal grafts. Rare cases involve persons eating meat from cattle affected by a disease similar to CJD called bovine spongiform encephalopathy or “mad cow disease.”

Sigurdson, with co-corresponding authors Michael D. Geschwind, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, Byron Caughey, PhD, at the NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, and others sampled eyes and then NIH researchers used a highly sensitive real-time assay called the RT-QuIC test developed by Caughey to measure postmortem prion seeding in different tissues of the eye, such as cornea, lens, ocular fluid, retina and optic nerve. Prions were found throughout the eyes of all eleven tested sCJD patients (who had agreed to donate their eyes upon death), with the highest seed levels in the retina — in some cases only slightly lower than in the brain. Analyses of the eyes from six control samples without diagnosed sCJD were negative for prions.

“Collectively, these results reveal that sCJD patients accumulate prion seeds throughout the eye, indicating the potential diagnostic utility as well as a possible biohazard,” wrote the authors.

The RT-QuIC test is used by clinicians to diagnose sCJD in people, usually through cerebrospinal fluid and nasal brushings. The researchers plan to further evaluate its utility in eye tests, and expand to evaluate the eyes of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or dementia with Lewy bodies to determine whether aggregated proteins from those conditions are present.

In the meantime, the authors recommended that ophthalmology exams employ either single-use instruments or equipment decontamination procedures to eliminate risk of prion transmission from patient to patient. And they said they hoped the findings would spur greater efforts to develop corneal grafting techniques, such as biosynthetic corneas, to eliminate iatrogenic disease transmission.

Related Posts

  • A pinch of baking soda for better vision?
  • Mad Cow Cover-Up: Original United States “Mad Cow” wasn’t a Downer
  • Antibiotics destroy ‘good bacteria’ and worsen oral infection
  • Honey Could Be Effective At Treating And Preventing Wound Infections

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: cornea, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, eye, eyes, infection, infections, mad cow disease, prions, retina

Article Sources

  • https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/the_eyes_have_it?_ga=2.155310840.277356356.1544713094-653377513.1544713094

About Captain Organic Planet

C.O.P. (Captain Organic Planet) is on a mission to inform anyone with an open mind that our food is far from natural; it is synthetic and fake. I believe our food supply is contributing to most of our diseases. The sad thing is it doesn't end there. Everywhere around us are dangers; in our household, in our water, and in your shampoo. Every aspect of your life is contributing to your health, wellness, sickness and disease. Challenge Conventional Culture. Live Life With An Organic Slant. L.iving O.rganically V.ibrates E.nergy

VIDEOS

View All Videos

Popular

Is Towpath Trail At Cleveland Ohio Steelyard Commons Radioactive From Manhattan Project?

July 27, 2012 By Captain Organic Planet Filed Under: Cancer, Nuclear

14-Year Old Anti-GMO Activist Agitates Monsanto Schill, Kevin O’Leary

November 20, 2013 By Captain Organic Planet Filed Under: GMO's

Vegans At Increased Risk Of Developing Blood Clots And Atherosclerosis

January 5, 2017 By Captain Organic Planet Filed Under: Health

Follow Organic Slant

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Organic Slant
Tweets by organicslant

Organic Slant

  • Home
  • About
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • links
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
All Rights Reserved 2018

Organic Slant LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

  • Home
  • About
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Cartoons
  • Media
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Advertise
  • Media
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

· Organic Slant All Rights Reserved © 2025 ·