Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) prion is more resistant to heat inactivation compared to other prions, but the effect of heat inactivation has been reported to differ depending on the BSE-contaminated tissue state or heating type. We aimed to evaluate the secure level of inactivation of original BSE transmissibility by dry-heating. Cattle tissues affected with BSE were subjected to dry-heat treatment for 20 min at various temperatures ranging from 150 to 1000 °C. To assess the inactivation effect, we conducted protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and follicular dendritic cell (FDC) assays in transgenic mice expressing bovine prion protein genes. Under dry-heating at 600 °C or higher, BSE cattle tissues lost their transmissibility in transgenic mice. In contrast, transmissibility was detected in the cattle tissues treated at temperatures of 400 °C or lower through the FDC assay combined with PMCA. In this study, we confirmed that transmissibility was eliminated in BSE-affected cattle tissues by dry-heating at 600 °C or higher.
Keywords: bovine spongiform encephalopathy; dry-heating; prion; transgenic mice; transmissibility.