We show that GSS with P102L, A117V and F198S mutations transmit efficiently and produce distinct pathological phenotypes in bank voles (M. glareolus), irrespective of the presence of 21 kDa PrP(res) in the inoculum, demonstrating that GSS is a genuine prion disease characterized by both transmissibility and strain variation.
Our findings suggest that brain extracts from GSS F198S disease contain 3 prominent nonglycosylated PK-resistant PrP fragments forming a pattern not previously described in other prion diseases, which may in part explain the pathology of this GSS disease variant.