Research & Surveillance

Site A-Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Quick links

EC TSE Reference Laboratory

TSE confirmatory diagnosis

All the methods listed below are methods currently in use at the VLA. The documents are published as pdfs.

Diagnostic criteria

Histopathology and immunohistochemistry (117kb)

Illustrations of disease-specific PrP depositions - ovine (388kb)

Illustrations of disease-specific PrP depositions - bovine (89kb)

Western Blotting and Scrapie Associated Fibril extraction (643kb)

Current methods/protocols

Change procedure for discriminatory blotting protocol (95kb)

Discriminatory Testing handbook (version 2 March 2007) (1.2mb)
Version 2 is only available electronically. All distributed hard copies of Version 1 are now obsolete and should be discarded.

Procedures on Fixation, tissue processing, histology and immunohistochemistry staining (updated July 2005) (37kb)

Sampling issues (100kb)

Discriminatory testing - STEG reports

Unusual isolates identified by discriminatory testing are referred to the CRL Strain Typing Expert Group (STEG) for further investigation (16kb)

The TSE community reference laboratory strain typing expert group (STEG) - 9 March 2006

Commission requests further investigations on three unusual cases of TSE in sheep - 9 March 2006

Preliminary STEG report on two unusual goats - one from the UK and one from France, 8th October 2008

Submission of material

Guidelines for the submission of samples for TSE confirmatory testing (914kb)

For information

New OIE guidelines for confirmation of BSE which are due to go live in 2008.

OIE rules for the official confirmation of BSE in bovines by using a second rapid test (107kb)