Prion diseases are caused by propagation of misfolded forms of the normal cellular prion protein PrP C , such as PrP BSE in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and PrP CJD in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans 1 . Disruption of PrP C expression in mice, a species that does not naturally contract prion diseases, results in no apparent developmental abnormalities [2][3][4][5] . However, the impact of ablating PrP C function in natural host species of prion diseases is unknown. Here we report the generation and characterization of PrP C -deficient cattle produced by a sequential gene-targeting system 6 . At over 20 months of age, the cattle are clinically, physiologically, histopathologically, immunologically and reproductively normal. Brain tissue homogenates are resistant to prion propagation in vitro as assessed by protein misfolding cyclic amplification 7 . PrP C -deficient cattle may be a useful model for prion research and could provide industrial bovine products free of prion proteins.To generate PrP C -deficient (PRNP −/− ) cattle, we transfected a male Holstein primary fetal fibroblast line 6594 with first and second knockout (KO) vectors (pBPrP(H)KOneo and pBPrP (H)KOpuro vectors) 6 to sequentially disrupt the two alleles of PRNP. PRNP −/− fetal cell lines were established at 40-60 d of gestation and three of the PRNP −/− fetal cell lines (5211, 5232 and 4296) were recloned to produce calves (Table 1 and Fig. 1a). To verify that the calves possess the PRNP −/− genotype, we collected ear biopsies and established fibroblast cell lines for genotyping. Genotyping was done by genomic PCR specific to each gene targeting event 6 (primer pairs: neoF7 × neoR7 and puroF14 × puroR14, Fig. 1b COMPETING INTERESTS STATEMENTThe authors declare competing financial interests (see the Nature Biotechnology website for details).Reprints and permissions information is available online at http://npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions/ NIH Public Access Fig. 1c) and confirmed the disruption of PRNP-specific mRNA expression in PRNP −/− calves. For protein expression analysis, we performed PrP-specific western blot analyses on fibroblasts (Fig. 1d), peripheral blood lymphocytes (Fig. 1e) and brain stem (Fig. 1f) from wild-type and PRNP −/− calves using the mouse anti-bovine PrP monoclonal antibody F89. We detected PrP-specific bands in the wild-type calves, whereas no reaction was observed in PRNP −/− calves and negative control mouse fibroblasts. These data clearly demonstrate that the PRNP gene is functionally inactivated in the PRNP −/− calves.PRNP −/− cattle were monitored for growth and general health status from birth to 20 months of age. Mean birth weight was 46 kg and average daily gain was 0.91 kg/d to 10 months. Both values were in the normal range for Holstein bulls. Serum chemistry was evaluated at 6 months of age and compared with published reference ranges. All the values for PRNP −/− calves (n = 12) were well within the reference range (Supplementary Table 1) and obvious abnormalities w...

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