Lymph Nodes Can Be Key in Spreading Prion Infectivity
Lymph nodes can be crucial for spreading low doses of infective prion agents -the pathogens responsible for conditions such as scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - into the nervous system, according to new research published in the online open access journal BMC Veterinary Research. While we can show that the regional lymph node plays no pivotal role in the neuroinvasion of prions for high doses of infection, we cannot rule out the possibility that lymph nodes are still involved in the distribution of prions throughout the body to other non-neural tissues.