Prevalence of scrapie resistant genotypes in U.S. goats as part of the NAHMS Goat 2019 Study
Keywords:
scrapie, NAHMS, alleleAbstract
Scrapie is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that infects sheep and goats. Scrapie disease in the U.S. greatly impacts the sheep and goat industry with annual economic losses of approximately $10 to $20 million. Research shows that an S or D allele present at codon 146 or a K allele present at codon 222 have a longer incubation period (4-5 times longer) following oral or intracerebral inoculation in goats with scrapie than the wildtype alleles (N-146 or Q-222), and animals with resistant alleles remained disease free throughout the study period. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of resistant alleles in U.S. goats to assess the risk of goat scrapie occurrence.