Specificity of lymphoreticular accumulation of prion protein for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
J Clin Pathol 2004;
57:300-2. [PMID:
14990604 PMCID:
PMC1770247 DOI:
10.1136/jcp.2003.012278]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Immunocytochemical accumulation of prion protein (PrP) in lymphoid tissues is a feature of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) that has been used both to aid in the diagnosis of patients and as a basis of large scale screening studies to assess the prevalence of preclinical disease in the UK. However, the specificity of this approach is unknown.
AIM
To assess the specificity of lymphoreticular accumulation of PrP for vCJD by examining a range of human diseases.
METHODS
Paraffin wax embedded lymphoreticular tissues from patients with several reactive conditions (58 cases), tumours (27 cases), vCJD (54 cases), and other human prion diseases (56 cases) were assessed. PrP accumulation was assessed by immunocytochemistry using two different monoclonal anti-PrP antibodies and a sensitive detection system.
RESULTS
All cases of vCJD showed widespread lymphoreticular accumulation of PrP; however, this was not seen in the other conditions examined.
CONCLUSION
Lymphoreticular accumulation of PrP, as assessed by immunocytochemistry, appears to be a highly specific feature of vCJD.
Collapse