The Generative Brain

IRTA-CRESA, Animal Health Research Centre of the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (Catalonia), prion group

IRTA-CReSA is the animal health research centre of IRTA, the Catalan public institute for agrifood research and technology, on the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona campus at Bellaterra, and it runs a prion group inside its animal health programme. The group runs PRIOCAT, described as the animal prion disease reference laboratory of Catalonia, which does screening and confirmatory diagnosis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in Catalan ruminant livestock and keeps a research line on TSE neuropathology using field cases and transgenic mouse models. Its published work is animal prion science: scrapie and atypical scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, chronic wasting disease in bank vole models, species barriers in rabbits and dogs, and recombinant prion strains, almost always as the in vivo and neuropathology partner of the CIC bioGUNE prion laboratory and of CISA-INIA, Toulouse and Colorado State University. The human prion link is real but indirect. In January 2018 IRTA-CReSA announced a project, reference AGL2017-88353-P, asking whether some sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease cases could have a small ruminant scrapie origin, planning to bioassay three sporadic CJD cases diagnosed in Catalonia and two variably protease-sensitive prionopathy cases from the Basque Country in sheep and goat PrP transgenic mice. No published result of that project was found, and no work in human PrP transgenic mice was confirmed. The group is a partner in the Interreg POCTEFA NEURO-COOP cross-border project, which covers human as well as animal misfolded protein disease. Information only, not medical advice.

Key facts

  • IRTA-CReSA sits in the animal health programme of IRTA and its prion researcher profile is listed on the IRTA staff site; the centre is on the UAB campus at Bellaterra and papers carry the joint IRTA-UAB CReSA affiliation.
  • PRIOCAT, the laboratory the prion group runs, is presented as the animal prion disease reference laboratory of Catalonia; it performs screening and confirmatory diagnosis of animal TSEs in Catalan ruminant livestock and maintains a government-funded research line on TSE neuropathology using field cases and transgenic mouse models. The same page says its head has led it since 2002 and has run the slaughterhouse support service since 2007; public professional roles only.
  • The prion work is done in level 3 biocontainment facilities at IRTA-CReSA that the 2018 project page describes as an ICTS within the high biological safety laboratory network.
  • On 15 January 2018 IRTA-CReSA announced a project, reference AGL2017-88353-P, funded at 56 percent by the Spanish state research plan, to test whether sheep and goat prion diseases could be linked to sporadic CJD. Its stated reasoning is that no epidemiological study has shown such a causal link but a zoonotic origin for some sporadic cases cannot be ruled out.
  • That project planned to study three sporadic CJD cases diagnosed in Catalonia, of the MM1, MV2 and VV2 subtypes, and two VPSPr cases diagnosed in the Basque Country, by serial intracerebral inoculation into two transgenic mouse lines expressing sheep and goat prion protein (Tg338 VRQ and Tg501 ARQ), with neuropathological and biochemical characterisation and protein misfolding cyclic amplification in small ruminant substrates. It cites a 2014 Nature Communications study in which mice expressing the human prion protein inoculated with classical sheep scrapie developed a phenotype matching sporadic CJD inoculation, which the page reads as evidence that the sheep to human species barrier is not absolute.
  • The 2018 project lists collaborators at HUB-ICO-IDIBELL, CIC bioGUNE, CISA-INIA, INRA and the UAB veterinary faculty, and says the IRTA animal ethics committee and the UAB biosafety committee approved it; public professional roles only.
  • The group co-authored the December 2019 PNAS paper showing that classical BSE prions emerge when atypical Nor98 scrapie isolates from five European countries are passaged in bovine PrP transgenic mice, and the August 2021 Scientific Reports paper finding classical BSE seeding activity by PMCA in the brains of asymptomatic minipigs challenged with atypical scrapie; the 2021 paper acknowledges Interreg POCTEFA REDPRION, EFA148/16.
  • It co-authored the July 2025 PNAS paper arguing that classical BSE arises from atypical Nor98 scrapie through a conformational shift rather than selection of a minor component, using thermostability and PMCA, with CISA-INIA, Complutense, INIAV Portugal, the Norwegian Veterinary Institute and Toulouse.
  • In December 2022 the group, with the CIC bioGUNE prion laboratory and others, published the first rodent model reproducing bona fide atypical scrapie, in mice overexpressing sheep PrP with the I112 polymorphism; the authors present spontaneous atypical scrapie in small ruminants as an analogue of idiopathic human prion disease.
  • Its chronic wasting disease work is in rodent models, not human ones. A June 2025 Neurobiology of Disease paper, first author from IRTA-CReSA, showed that a bank vole adapted CWD strain keeps its properties in mice expressing bank vole PrP without glycosylation or a membrane anchor, concluding that strain identity is carried mainly by the misfolded structure; a second 2025 paper in the same journal looked at how cervid PrP sequence variation affects stability and spontaneous misfolding.
  • Recent models from the same collaboration bear on spontaneous and genetic human prion disease by analogy: a January 2026 paper on mice overexpressing bank vole PrP I109 that develop spontaneous atypical prion disease resembling GSS, with serum neurofilament light rising about 100 days before clinical onset, and a 2026 Brain Pathology paper on a mouse PrP L108I model that propagates both an atypical GSS A117V strain and classical mouse strains.
  • European Regional Development Fund grant EFA031/01 NEURO-COOP appears in the funding lists of the 2025 bank vole CWD paper, the January 2026 bank vole PrP I109 paper and the 2026 L108I paper, which matches the IRTA, Toulouse and project site pages listing IRTA-CRESA as a NEURO-COOP partner; the 2026 L108I paper also lists a CJD Foundation 2022 grant among its funders.
  • A Europe PMC search on the CReSA affiliation with prion terms returned 43 records, of which only one concerns human prion disease directly, a 2019 study of cerebrospinal fluid neurogranin as a neuronal damage marker in CJD compared with Alzheimer disease, on which CReSA is one affiliation among many; a wider search on the affiliation with human PrP, Creutzfeldt and zoonotic terms returned no human prion clinical or human PrP mouse paper from the centre in the records read.

Timeline

  1. 2012PNAS paper with CReSA involvement reports that rabbits are not resistant to prion infection.
  2. 2015PLoS Pathogens paper, first author from IRTA-CReSA, shows rabbit PrP transgenic mice are susceptible to a range of prion isolates.
  3. 2017PNAS paper on prion replication without host adaptation during interspecies transmission, with IRTA-CReSA, Colorado State University and CIC bioGUNE.
  4. 2018IRTA-CReSA announces project AGL2017-88353-P on a possible link between sporadic CJD and small ruminant scrapie.
  5. 2019PNAS paper on the emergence of classical BSE from atypical Nor98 scrapie, with IRTA-CReSA among the authors.
  6. 2021Scientific Reports paper finds classical BSE prions in asymptomatic pigs challenged with atypical scrapie, acknowledging REDPRION EFA148/16.
  7. 2022Acta Neuropathologica Communications paper reports the first faithful rodent model of atypical scrapie.
  8. 2024NEURO-COOP actions start with IRTA-CRESA as a partner.
  9. 2025Neurobiology of Disease paper, first author from IRTA-CReSA, on bank vole adapted CWD without glycosylation or membrane anchoring, acknowledging ERDF EFA031/01.
  10. 2025PNAS paper argues classical BSE emerges from atypical scrapie by conformational shift.
  11. 2026Acta Neuropathologica Communications paper on spontaneous atypical prion disease in bank vole PrP I109 mice, acknowledging NEURO-COOP.
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