Chronic Wasting Disease: A Review and working hypothesis, the Agent and its Transmission PART I: A Logical Causative Agent

(Part I) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) and in particular, Chronic Wasting Disease are devastating neuropathologic diseases caused by a unique, but unknown infective agent with high degree of refractivity to ordinary disinfectant and sterilization procedures. Three criteria are used to identify TSEs 1) neuronal vacoulation, 2) Scrapie Associated Fibrils, and 3) proteins resistance to proteinase-K digestion as detected by Western Blot and immunostaining or via more abbreviated ELISA tests. All three ID criteria are misleading in their ability to identify TSE disease, and evidence of such fallibility is presented herein together with annotation. Neurotropic, sterol ingesting bacteria of the Class Mollicutes, generally termed Mycoplasma and more specifically various strains of Spiroplasma can, and do, produce the defined TSE identification criteria including proteinase-K resistant proteins of the 25 to 30 kDa range, fibrils of 4 to 6 nm diameter, and will upon intracerebral inoculation of rodents, produce disease symptoms, agent refractivity and the infectivity conditions associated with the putative TSE disease agent. As a working infection hypothesis, Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies are amitotic Spiroplasma-induced, intracellular prionic, cytoplasmic, and mitochondrial superoxide dismutase and glutathione red-ox aberrations with resultant neuronal membrane lysis, followed by subsequent cytoapoptosis, or cytonecrosis initiated by concordant, but unrequited reactive oxygen species stress. Conclusively the failure of the scientific community to diligently pursue Mycoplasma and Spiroplasma in their role of disease pathogenesis, particularly in TSEs is a failure in our investigative system of scientific curiosity and prudence.