Diagnosis - RNA based Prion Disease Diagnostic Tools
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mRNA Markers
Research on diagnosis of CJD has shown that there is an upregulation of certain biological markers associated with microglia activation when CJD is inoculated into a mouse. It has also been found that another possible marker, Hsp70 mRNA is elevated in patients already diagnosed with CJD. These markers appear to be better diagnostic tools compared to the conventional detection of PrP-Res as some markers are upregulated even before Prp-Res is detected (1). Current diagnosis involves detecting a resistant form of Prion protein (PrP-Res), where PrP-Res is resistant to the detergents used in proteolysis in a test-tube assay due to abnormally folded cellular Prion protein (1, 2). A weakness is that detection is only possible when there is an abundant amount of this protein, which may mean that the disease has progressed into the late stages (2). Thus detecting the upregulation of these mRNA markers when a patient is suspected of being infected with CJD can allow for early detection of CJD which means early administration of treatments and lower mortality rates.