Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow’s disease) may have evolved from scrapie.
Researchers in France made the discovery when they injected scrapie into mice which then developed BSE.
This indicates that the illness could be transmitted between different species and that the modified mice could develop mad cow disease, according to the study.
Olivier Andreoletti, an author of the paper from the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA,) said the modified mice are “a very good model, which works well in terms of knowing what would happen if one exposed cows to those prions.”
He noted that the results provide, for the first time, and “experimentally underpinned explanation” for the appearance of mad cow disease in the U.K. in the 1980s.
It spread widely in the United Kingdom and showed up in Europe, Canada and the United States, disrupting international trade in cattle, beef and sheep.
