{"doi":"10.1101/2021.03.13.435248","title":"Detection of Chronic Wasting Disease prions in fetal tissues <i>of</i> free-ranging white-tailed deer","abstract":"Abstract The transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) has largely been attributed to contact with infectious prions shed in excretions (saliva, urine, feces, blood) by direct animal-to-animal exposure or indirect contact with the environment. Less-well studied has been the role mother-to-offspring transmission may play in the facile transmission of CWD. We asked whether such extensive spread may also be due to mother-to-offspring transmission, perhaps before birth. We thereby focused on a population of white-tailed deer from West Virginia, USA, in which CWD has been detected. Fetal tissues, ranging from 113 to 158 days of gestation, were harvested from the uteri of CWD+ dams in the asymptomatic phase of infection. Using serial protein misfolding amplification (sPMCA), we detected evidence of prion seeds in 6 of 14 in utero harvested fetuses, with earliest detection at 113 gestational days. This is the first report of CWD detection in free ranging white-tailed deer fetal tissues. Further investigation within cervid populations across North America will help define the role and impact of mother-to-offspring vertical transmission of CWD.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":216473,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9497,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":812846,"name":"EE McNulty","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":713599,"name":"Amber Mayfield","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812847,"name":"JM Crum","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":712913,"name":"M. Kevin Keel","orcid":"0000-0002-0995-1617","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812848,"name":"E A Hoover","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812849,"name":"M A Ruder","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812850,"name":"CK Mathiason","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":812845,"name":"Amy D Nalls","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":41,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:11.245932Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}