Clinical and pathological features of experimental scrapie in Irish Blackface Mountain sheep

There have been no reports of natural scrapie in Irish Blackface Mountain (BM) sheep which account for approximately 16% of the Irish national sheep flock. The aim of this study was to determine if Irish BM sheep had unusual clinical and/or pathological features of scrapie which would account for failure to diagnose the disease in this breed. BM (n=7), Texel (n=3) and Suffolk sheep (n=1) of scrapie-susceptible PrP genotypes (ARQ/ARQ and VRQ/ARQ) were orally challenged with scrapie-infected brain inoculum. The incubation period, clinical signs, pathology and distribution of disease specific prion protein (PrP(d)) in scrapie-affected BM sheep were similar to scrapie in the Texel and Suffolk sheep. It was concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that scrapie in BM sheep differs clinicopathologically from scrapie in other breeds of sheep.