Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R Fatzer.
Intraneuronal vacuoles have been observed in the motor trigeminal nucleus of the medulla oblongata of two dogs which showed neurological deficits. Its significance and possible relation with the same lesions observed in other animal species are discussed.
In Switzerland bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was detected for the first time in November 1990. It is a transmissible disease of the central nervous system similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS) and kuru in man, and, in animals, scrapie in sheep and goats, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in captive mule deer and elk of North America and transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) of farm reared mink. The infectious agent of the spongiform encephalopathies (SEs) is extremely small (greater than 100 microns) and very resistant against physical and chemical disinfectants. The infectiousness is closely linked to the so-called prion proteins, the biological and genetic properties of which are not yet fully understood. The first outbreak of BSE occurred in England, and the disease spread rapidly all over Great Britain. The source of infection proved to be bone and meat meal obtained from scrapie-infected slaughter wastes. So far we have diagnosed 17 cases of BSE in our country. The risk of humans contracting CJD by ingestion of meat, milk and their products contaminated with BSE is probably minimal.
A lentivirus belonging to the group of retroviridae causes a chronic progressive interstitial pneumopathy (maedi) or a demyelinating encephalo-myelitis (visna) in sheep and goats. Pulmonary lesions of maedi as well as sero-positive, clinically healthy animals can be observed in Switzerland; visna, which even in countries with endemic infection does not occur frequently, is extremely rare. The head and cervical spine of an ewe with severe nervous troubles suspected of scrapie were submitted for postmortem examination. We found a demyelinating myelitis resembling visna. Immunocytochemical staining (PAP) to demonstrate the presence of the virus in paraffin sections was negative, but several animals of the flock proved to be seropositive for maedi/visna virus, which supports the histological diagnosis. Although there is no risk of an epidemic outbreak of maedi/visna in Switzerland, modes of transmission, eradication programmes and prophylactic measures successfully employed in countries with endemic maedi/visna are discussed.
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Brains of 17 dogs with primary reticulosis, and of two with metastatic and one with primary lymphosarcoma, were examined by immunohistologic techniques with antisera against the major immunoglobulin classes of the dog. On the basis of immunoglobulin in tumour cells, two reticuloses were reclassified as primary lymphosarcomas of the brain. The tumour cells in three other dogs with neoplastic reticulosis and in six dogs with microgliomatosis did not contained immunoglobulin. Many cells in inflammatory reticulosis were immunoglobulin-bearing. Although some of these lesions could have been lymphosarcomas, insufficient data were available to ascertain either an inflammatory or a neoplastic nature. It was concluded that some lesions previously classified as reticulosis are in fact primary histiocytic lymphosarcomas of the brain, while others may be true reticulosarcomas.
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In the brain of a 4-year-old ewe extensive Rosenthal fiber (RF) formation was found in a subpial and subependymal location and in particular in the cerebellar white matter. Here, the RFs were concentrated around blood vessels, and there was diffuse myelin rarefaction. The animal had given birth to two lambs, which were still healthy at the age of 3 weeks when their mother died after a short illness with astasia and alternating states of somnolence and hyperexcitability.
A lysosomal storage disease with accumulation of periodic acid-Schiff- and Sudan black-positive autofluorescent granules in neurons occurred in one 5 1/2- and one 7-year-old dachshund. Ultrastructurally, the storage material consisted of membranous material arranged in stacks and fingerprint patterns. The disease was defined as ceroid-lipofuscinosis, and resembled a previously reported case in an adult dachshund.
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A 4-month-old, male, healthy dog developed CNS-symptoms 10 days after the second vaccination with live, attenuated distemper and canine hepatitis virus. The animal was euthanized after 2 weeks of illness. Light and electron microscopic examination of the CNS showed a partly necrotizing encephalomyelitis with numberous intranuclear and intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies, and the presence of probable pseudomyxovirus nucleocapsids and of crystalloid and tubuloreticular aggregates. Although there was conformity of inclusion bodies and probable viral structures as revealed by electron microscopy, the latter showed a much wider distribution. In addition, viral structures of a different type were found in polymorphonuclear leukocytes and vascular endothelial cells. Several morphological criteria led to the supposition that they are Picornaviruses, or possibly Arenaviruses. It is thought that their role in the disease process was at best an indirect one.
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