Animal Experiments and Sample Preparation

All animal experiments were carried out in accordance with European, German, and USA legal and ethical regulations. Twenty outbred Syrian hamsters at an age of approximately 8 weeks were treated with 1-3 xlO 50% intracerebral lethal doses of scrapie strain 263K as described elsewhere. Twelve mock-infected hamsters of the same age were similarly treated with normal brain homogenate and served as controls. Five infected and three control hamsters each were sacrificed by euthanasia with CO2 at four time points 100 

To gain an idea of the disease progression and where to expect elevated amounts of p-sheet due to the deposition of misfolded prion protein, immu- 

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