All About Chronic Wasting Disease!!

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathy that affects deer. TSEs are types of diseases that are thought to be caused by prions misfolding. Similar diseases include "Mad Cow Disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. CWD mostly affects the deer family,  experiments have resulted in transmitting CWD to squirrel monkeys and genetically modified mice. 

Symptoms of CWD

CWD takes around 18-24 months to onset. The disease mostly occurs in adults, though there have been cases seen in animals as young as 15 months; CWD is always fatal. Symptoms of CWD include, difficulties in movement, weight loss over time, confusion, excessive salivating, loss of fear, listlessness, repetitive patterns of walking, and much more. 

Cause

CWD is caused by misfolding prions. Prions are misfolded proteins. Prions can induce normal proteins of the same variant to misfold and trigger cellular death. Prions are very resiliant and form "chains" of prions, making it impossible to cure with our current technology. Prions can form sporadically, from genetic mutations or if coming in contact with another prion. 

Spread

Prion diseases can be spread indirectly, directly or through experimentation. Direct contact with infected animals, their body tissue or body fluids can cause infection. Indirect enviromental transmission, such as infected waste, saliva, and decomposing carcasses of infected animals. It has also been seen in experiments that other species can be infected with CWD

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

written by ellie/ivlis!!