Abstract Efforts to contain the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal, contagious prion disease of cervids, would be aided by the availability of additional diagnostic tools.RT-QuIC assays allow ultrasensitive detection of prion seeds in a wide variety of cervid GLOVES tissues, fluids and excreta.The best documented antemortem diagnostic test involving RT-QuIC analysis targets lymphoid tissue in rectal biopsies.Here we have tested a more easily accessed specimen, ear pinna punches, using an improved RT-QuIC assay involving iron oxide magnetic extraction to detect CWD infections in asymptomatic mule and white-tailed deer.
Comparison of multiple parts of the ear pinna indicated that a central punch spanning the auricular nerve provided the most consistent detection of CWD infection.When compared to results obtained from gold-standard retropharyngeal lymph node specimens, our RT-QuIC analyses of ear samples provided Files apparent diagnostic sensitivity (81%) and specificity (91%) that rivaled, or improved upon, those observed in previous analyses of rectal biopsies using RT-QuIC.These results provide evidence that RT-QuIC analysis of ear pinna punches may be a useful approach to detecting CWD infections in cervids.