The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 27, 2000
Stanley B. Prusiner, San Francisco, CA (US);
Jiri Safar, Concord, CA (US);
The Regents of the University of California, Oakland, CA (US);
Abstract
The present invention provides assays for identifying the levels of both protease sensitive and protease resistant conformers of PrP in a sample. In a preferred embodiment, the assay comprises determining levels of total PrP in a sample, subjecting the PrP fraction to treatment with a protease that selectively hydrolyzes the protease sensitive PrP (sPrP ) conformers, and quantifying the levels of sPrP in the sample. The ability to detect sPrP allows early detection of prions, since the PrP in easily accessible biological samples such as blood is predominantly sPrP . The ratio of sPrP to rPrP also allows the identification of a particular prion strain in an infected sample.