Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an emerging prion disease of free-ranging and captive cervids in North America. In this study we established a rodent model for CWD in Syrian golden hamsters that resemble key features of the disease in cervids including cachexia and infection of cardiac muscle. Following one to three serial passages of CWD from white-tailed deer into transgenic mice expressing ...

Experimental transmission of the Stetsonville, Wisconsin, U.S.A. source of transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) to outbred Syrian golden hamsters resulted in two distinct syndromes, termed hyper (HY) and drowsy (DY), that diverge by the third hamster passage. The syndromes differed with respect to clinical signs, incubation period, brain titre, brain lesion profile and pathogenicity in mink....

A pancreatic acinar cell-mediated mutagenicity assay was developed as an in vitro model system to study the metabolism of N-nitrosobis(2-oxopropyl)amine (BOP) and N-nitroso(2-hydroxypropyl)(2-oxopropyl)amino (HPOP) into forms mutagenic for Chinese hamster V79 cells. Mutations at the hypoxanthine:guanine phosphoribosyltransferase locus and the Na/K ATPase locus were scored by resistance to 6-thi...

Phosphomannosyl receptor (PMR) isolated from Syrian hamster liver was purified to apparent homogeneity by affinity chromatography and one-dimensional PAGE. On one-dimensional PAGE, the receptor migrated with a Mr approximately equal to 215,000 as detected by a silver-staining reagent or by immunoblotting [utilizing antiPMR generated against purified hamster PMR (Mr 215,000) sequentially purifie...

The tobacco-specific nitrosamines 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) were tested for carcinogenic activity in Syrian golden hamsters. In Assay A, 30 hamsters were each given 19 s.c. injections of 0.048 mmol of NNK or NNN. In Assay B, 20 hamsters each received 75 s.c. injections of 0.012 mmol of NNK or NNN. Among the NNK-treated hamsters in Assay...

The effect of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) on the terminal differentiation of hamster epidermal cells in culture was studied. Epidermal cells were isolated from 1-day-old Syrian hamsters by separating the epidermis from the dermis by cold trypsin treatment. A large number of cells were isolated by this procedure without contamination with dermal fibroblasts. When grown in culture,...