About the Authors

Laura Pirisinu

laura.pirisinu@iss.it (LP); wenquan.zou@case.edu (WQZ)

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Romolo Nonno

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Elena Esposito

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Sylvie L. Benestad

Affiliation Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Oslo, Norway

Pierluigi Gambetti

Affiliation Department of Pathology, National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America

Umberto Agrimi

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy

Wen-Quan Zou

laura.pirisinu@iss.it (LP); wenquan.zou@case.edu (WQZ)

Affiliation Department of Pathology, National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LP RN PG UA WQZ. Performed the experiments: LP EE. Analyzed the data: LP RN PG UA WQZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LP RN SB PG UA WQZ. Wrote the paper: LP RN WQZ. Revised the manuscript: SB PG UA.