Tubulovesicular structures are present in brains of hamsters infected with the Echigo-1 strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease agent.

Abstract

Tubulovesicular structures (particles; TVS) are virion-like particles 25-30 nm in diameter found by thin-section electron microscopy in brains of all prion diseases including scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) fatal familial insomnia (FFI) and Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheineker disease (GSS) as well as in cell cultures infected with TSE agents. TVS are regarded as a disease-specific ultrastructural marker for TSEs and, by those not completely satisfied with the prion hypothesis, they are even considered to be a possible candidate for the infectious TSE agent itself. A caveat regarding that interpretation stemmed from previous failures to find TVS by electron microscopic studies of tissues from animals infected with the Echigo-1 strain of CJD agent. We now report detecting TVS in brains of hamsters infected with that strain of CJD agent, albeit with a very low frequency.