This page lists the papers that the Atlas treats as key. Each entry summarises one study, names its authors and journal, and gives the limits the authors themselves state. A single study rarely settles a question. Read each entry as one piece of evidence, and ask a doctor or counsellor about anything that concerns your own situation.
Which papers are in the Atlas?
| Entry | Topic |
|---|---|
| Beringue 2008 | Atypical BSE in mice with human prion protein |
| Biacabe 2004 | Molecular types of prions in cattle |
| Cai 2013 | Prion removal in plasma product manufacture |
| Casalone 2004 | Bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy |
| Cassard 2014 | Sheep scrapie and possible transmission to humans |
| Comoy 2015 | Scrapie in a macaque |
| Denouel 2023 | Sporadic CJD by age, period and birth cohort |
| Israel framework 2026 | Genetic testing in relatives |
| Kong 2008 | Bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy in human-protein mice |
What does one entry look like?
The 2015 macaque study in Scientific Reports reports that one monkey given sheep scrapie into the brain developed prion disease about ten years later. The authors describe it as a case report. They note that only one route of exposure was tested and that oral transmission remains unknown. Their conclusion is that scrapie can cause disease in primates within a primate lifespan, after a longer incubation than BSE.
Where are the newest papers?
A 2026 study in Annals of Neurology reports a modified spinal fluid test for sporadic and inherited prion disease. Its authors state that independent, multi-laboratory validation is still needed. More on tests is on Tests and assays.
An overview of the Prion 2024 conference describes recent topics in the field, and conferences are listed on Events and conferences.
How do papers connect to rules and organizations?
Studies on animal prions and blood products feed into the rules on Regulations. The groups that wrote them are on Organizations. The Atlas home lists the other sections.
Explore
- Beringue V et al. 2008, Transmission of atypical bovine prions to mice transgenic for human prion protein (Emerg Infect Dis 14:1898-1901, PMID 19046515)A short 2008 Emerging Infectious Diseases dispatch from the INRA prion group at Jouy-en-Josas, with the Turin veterinary institute, that inoculated fi
- Biacabe AG, Laplanche JL, Ryder S, Baron T 2004, Distinct molecular phenotypes in bovine prion diseases (EMBO Rep 5:110-115, PMID 14710195)A short 2004 EMBO Reports paper from the AFSSA-Lyon animal prion laboratory (now ANSES Lyon), with co-authors in Paris and at the Veterinary Laborator
- Cai K et al. Prion removal capacity of plasma protein manufacturing processes: a data collection from PPTA member companies (Transfusion 2013)This is an industry paper in which member companies of the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association (PPTA), the trade body of plasma fractionators, poo
- Casalone C et al. 2004, Identification of a second bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy, molecular similarities with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (PNAS 101:3065-3070, PMID 14970340)A 2004 PNAS paper from the Italian national reference centre for animal encephalopathies in Turin, with neurologists in Verona, the Brescia veterinary
- Cassard et al. 2014, Evidence for zoonotic potential of ovine scrapie prions (Nature Communications 5:5821)The anchor paper for the question of whether sheep scrapie can cause disease in people.
- Comoy EE et al. 2015, Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period (Sci Rep 5:11573)The second evidence line, next to Cassard 2014, for the idea that sheep scrapie might in principle reach people.
- Denouel A et al. 2023, The role of environmental factors on sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mortality, an age-period-cohort analysis (Eur J Epidemiol 38:757-764)A French national surveillance study that asks whether sporadic CJD, usually treated as a chance event in the brain, also shows the fingerprint of something in the environment.
- Shir D et al. A practice framework for genetic testing in asymptomatic relatives of patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, experience and insights from Israel (Eur J Neurol 2026;33(6):e70649, PMID 42333775, PMC13287960)An open access consensus paper from Israel, published in the European Journal of Neurology in June 2026, that sets out how clinics there handle reques
- Kong Q et al. 2008, Evaluation of the human transmission risk of an atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy prion strain (J Virol 82:3697-3701, PMID 18234793)A short 2008 Journal of Virology paper from Case Western Reserve University pathology in Cleveland with the Turin veterinary reference centre and the
- Marin-Moreno A et al. 2020, Radical change in zoonotic abilities of atypical BSE prion strains as evidenced by crossing of sheep species barrier in transgenic mice (Emerg Infect Dis 26:1130-1139)The current reference point for how far atypical BSE might reach towards people.
- Martheswaran T et al. 2020, A contemporary risk analysis of iatrogenic transmission of CJD via corneal transplantation in the United States (Ophthalmol Ther 9:465-483)A review with a statistical model from a Utah eye research and eye bank group that updates the US estimate of how many donated corneas may come from p
- Ng M et al. Multidisciplinary recommendations for palliative and supportive care in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and related disorders (Age and Ageing 2026)This open access paper in Age and Ageing is a practical guideline for clinicians on palliative and supportive care in prion disease, written from UK p
- Orru CD et al. 2018, Prion seeds distribute throughout the eyes of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patients (mBio 9:e02095-18)A postmortem study from NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories, UC San Diego and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center that measured prion seeding activity with
- Pritzkow S et al. 2022, North American and Norwegian chronic wasting disease prions exhibit different potential for interspecies transmission and zoonotic risk (J Infect Dis 225:542)This is an in vitro strain comparison of chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions from six cervid isolates, three North American (whitetail deer, elk, mul
- Schwartz M et al. Genetic Testing in Prion Disease: Psychological Consequences of the Decisions to Know or Not to Know (Front Genet 2019, PMID 31616476, PMC6764331)A short exploratory study, published as a Brief Research Report in Frontiers in Genetics in September 2019, from the APHP Department of Genetics at Pi
- Thomas S et al. Safety profile of plasma for fractionation donated in the United Kingdom, with respect to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Vox Sang 2023)A 2023 review in Vox Sanguinis, written by a coalition of UK blood services, the UK Department of Health and Social Care, European blood and plasma bo
- Uflacker A et al. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for genetic prion disorder due to F198S mutation in the PRNP gene (JAMA Neurol 2014;71(4):484-486, PMID 24493558, PMC4349573)A short case report in JAMA Neurology, April 2014, that the authors present as the first published use of in vitro fertilisation with preimplantation
- Wadsworth JDF et al. 2022, Humanized transgenic mice are resistant to chronic wasting disease prions from Norwegian reindeer and moose (J Infect Dis 226:933)The main in vivo evidence that the Norwegian form of chronic wasting disease does not readily cross into human prion protein.
Sources for this page
- Comoy EE and others (2015). Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period. Scientific Reports 5:11573
- Myskiw J and others (2026). Enhanced sensitivity of a modified quaking-induced conversion diagnostic test. Annals of Neurology 99(5):1303-1314
- Kong Y and others. Prion 2024 conference overview. Prion 2025;19(1):1-7