Uptake dynamics of scrapie agent in the intestinal villous epithelium of suckling and weanling Syrian hamsters.

In mice, the number of intestinal villous columnar epithelium cells that incorporate abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) decreases significantly after weaning. In this study, the dynamics of PrPSc uptake during the growth of hamsters were investigated by inoculating scrapie 263K agent orally into suckling and weanling Syrian hamsters and estimating the number of PrPSc-positive villous epithelium cells immuno-histochemically. The number of PrPSc-positive cells declined significantly as the hamsters aged. The present results suggest that a tendency toward decline of PrPSc-positive cells with increasing age might be a common phenomenon among the superfamily Muridae.