NIH Study Shows Chronic Wasting Disease Unlikely to Move from Animals to People Study of Cerebral Organoids Reinforces Evidence for Substantial Species Barrier May 17, 2024

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/nih-study-shows-chronic-wasting-disease-unlikely-move-animals-people?utm_campaign=+60631239&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term= A new NIAID study of prion diseases, using a human cerebral organoid model, suggests there is a substantial species barrier preventing transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) from cervids—deer, elk and moose—to people. The findings, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, are consistent with decades of similar NIAID research in animal models. CWD is a type of prion disease found in cervids, which are popular game animals. While CWD has never been found in people, a question about its transmission potential has lingered for decades: Can people who eat meat from CWD-infected cervids develop prion disease? Historically, scientists have used mice, hamsters, squirrel monkeys and cynomolgus macaques to mimic prion diseases in people. In 2019, NIAID scientists developed a human cerebral organoid model of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) to evaluate treatments and to study human prion diseases. These small spheres of human brain cells grown from human skin cells are the closest available laboratory model to the human brain. In the new CWD study, the researchers directly exposed healthy human cerebral organoids for seven days with high concentrations of CWD prions from white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, and based on six months of observation, found none infected with CWD.