Diagnosis of spongiform encephalopathy

摘要

A method for assessing and/ or predicting the susceptibility of an animal to bovine spongiform encephalopathy or a derivative thereof comprising determining the genotype of the individual at polymorphic residue 129 of prion protein (PrP). The method involves determining whether or not an individual is homozygous for methionine or valine at residue 129 of PrP, preferably from a blood sample obtained from the individual. Also disclosed is a kit for use in the above method comprising a specific pair of primers for amplification of a portion of the gene encoding for PrP.