Researchers from the Agriculture and Life Sciences Division at Lincoln University have recently developed an enhanced test for scrapie susceptibility screening that will allow a more accurate and less expensive method for identifying the different forms (alleles) of the susceptible genes in New Zealand sheep.
This will allow New Zealand sheep exporters to export live sheep, ova and semen to countries such as the UK and the EU who are now looking to import ‘resistant’ scrapie genotypes in order to build up flocks that are more resistant to the disease.
Project Leader, Dr Jon Hickford, said “This test will allow New Zealand exporters to easily and cheaply obtain a scrapie susceptibility rating when selling sheep into these markets.”
“Scrapie is a fatal neurological disease affecting sheep that would cause serious and devastating losses to the sheep industry if it made its way to here. New Zealand does not have scrapie.”
“Being scrapie free gives enormous benefits to our meat industry as we are able to export our sheep and sheep products to a large number of countries on the basis of our scrapie free status,” said Dr Hickford.
“There is, however, some concern that there may come a time in the future when all sheep in New Zealand will be required to be tested even though we don’t have scrapie here”
“This would be an interesting development, in light of the fact that recent evidence suggests that the supposed scrapie resistant sheep in the UK are not, in fact, resistant to some forms of scrapie.”
Six different sheep breeds (Awassi, Borderdale, Corriedale, Finnish Landrace, Merino and Romney) were tested by scientists from the Cell Biology Group at Lincoln University
to find genetic variation (different alleles) present in this gene.
They used a number of commonly available molecular biology techniques and ran them in combination so that they obtained far more accurate and error free results than previous methods were able to achieve. They also identified a new form of the scrapie resistance gene not seen anywhere else in the world.
“While the techniques are quite simple in themselves, combining them has allowed us to produce an extremely robust test and this has not previously been used anywhere in the world, said Dr Hickford.
The agent causing scrapie is believed to be a very small independent part of a protein called a prion. A gene coding for this protein can have a number of different forms, some of which make the animal more susceptible to contacting scrapie than others.
This work was funded by Lincoln University’s DNA Typing Laboratory.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
Janette Busch, Technical Writer
Lincoln University, Canterbury
Tel: 64 3 325 2811 ext 8114
Email: Janette Busch