Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an emerging disease in Europe. We report an increase in interspecies transmission capacity and zoonotic potential of a moose CWD isolate from Europe after passage in an ovine prion protein-expressing host. Those results indicated some CWD prions could acquire enhanced zoonotic properties following adaptation in an intermediate species.
Keywords: European moose; chronic wasting disease; enhanced zoonotic potential; prion disease; prions; transgenic model; transmission barrier; zoonoses.