Towards Purification of the Scrapie Agent

Abstract
A method for the partial purification of scrapie infectivity from hamster brain is described. About a 100- to 1000-fold, 20-fold and 200-fold enrichment in scrapie infectivity with respect to protein, RNA, and DNA content was achieved using differential centrifugation, enzyme and detergent treatment. The inbred CLAC strain of hamsters used in these experiments contained .apprx. 10 times less infectivity in brain than has been found in randomly bred animals or other inbred strains.