Prion seeding activity and infectivity in skin samples from patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Authors: Christina D. Orrú, Jue Yuan, Brian S. Appleby, Baiya Li, Yu Li, Dane Winner, Zerui Wang, Yi-An Zhan, Mark Rodgers, Jason Rarick, Robert E. Wyza, Tripti Joshi, Gong-Xian Wang, Mark L. Cohen, Shulin Zhang, Bradley R. Groveman, Robert B. Petersen, James W. Ironside, Miguel E. Quiñones‐Mateu, Jiri Safar, Qingzhong Kong, Byron Caughey, Wen‐Quan Zou - Science Translational Medicine 2017 cited by 146

-fold lower prion seeding activity than did sCJD patient brain tissue, all 12 mice from two transgenic mouse lines inoculated with sCJD skin homogenates from two sCJD patients succumbed to prion disease within 564 days after inoculation. Our study demonstrates that the skin of sCJD patients contains both prion seeding activity and infectivity, which raises concerns about the potential for iatrogenic sCJD transmission via skin.