Mad cow disease could be detected from cattle’s eyes, say experts

Researchers from Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University (ISU), U.S., revealed a novel way to diagnose mad cow syndrome in cattle with the help of a contagious abnormal protein, prion, present in their eyes.

Mad cow syndrome or Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, as it is known in scientific terms, is an incurable and lethal degenerative neurological disorder (brain disease).

It is the most common type of prion diseases that affect the brain and nervous system of many animals and humans.

Research details
Researchers conducted experiment on cattle wherein they assessed the cattle’s eyes for infections resulting in any sort of neurological disturbances.

They found that cows with the mad cow disease had an agent called prion in their eyes. Prion is an infectious agent composed primarily of protein.

Prions may be found by observing chemical changes in the retina of the animals, a light sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye.

Researchers thus noted that this method of detecting mad cow disease may become the basis for a long-sought test.

Other findings
Researchers further noted that in humans, the mad cow disease results from eating meat from cows infected with prions. This results in numerous brain disorders in humans.

Researchers have showed that sheep’s retinas infected by scrapie, a disease similar to mad cow disease, release a distinctive glow in a beam of light using specialized instrument.

The Epoch Times quoted research scientists as saying, “Our investigations, which have focused on scrapie-positive and scrapie-negative sheep, suggest that the retina is a most promising part of the eye for revealing spectroscopic signatures indicative of neurological disease.”

“Given our results, we suggest that the distinct differences in the spectral signatures of the retina are diagnostic of animals naturally infected with scrapie,” they added.

Stressing on the rapidity and inexpensive nature of the diagnosis, lead researcher Dr. Jacob Petrich, ISU was quoted by The Epoch Times as saying, “We further suggest that the eye, and in particular the retina, will be a useful tissue for noninvasive determination of neurological pathologies such as scrapie.”

In addition, if infected cattle are identified, the disease could be prevented from spreading in the food supply.

The research appears in the journal Analytical Chemistry.