About the Authors

Kentaro Masujin

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Yuko Kaku-Ushiki

Affiliation Nippi Research Institute of Biomatrix, Toride, Ibaraki, Japan

Ritsuko Miwa

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Hiroyuki Okada

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Yoshihisa Shimizu

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Kazuo Kasai

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Yuichi Matsuura

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Takashi Yokoyama

tyoko@affrc.go.jp

Affiliation Prion Disease Research Center, National Institute of Animal Health, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Competing Interests

Ms. Yuko Ushiki-Kaku belongs to company institute, Nippi Research Institute of BioMatrix. She works on basic prion research in this institute. And this does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KM TY. Performed the experiments: KM RM HO. Analyzed the data: KM YKU HO YS KK YM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KM RM YKU HO. Wrote the paper: KM TY.