About the Authors

Ciriaco Ligios

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ciriaco.ligios@izs-sardegna.it (CL); mathias.heikenwalder@usz.ch (MH)

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Giovanna Maria Cancedda

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Ilan Margalith

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Institute of Neuropathology, UniversitätsSpital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Cinzia Santucciu

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Laura Madau

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Caterina Maestrale

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Massimo Basagni

Affiliation Prion Diagnostica Srl, Rho, Italy

Mariangela Saba

Affiliation Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sardegna, Sassari, Italy

Mathias Heikenwalder

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ciriaco.ligios@izs-sardegna.it (CL); mathias.heikenwalder@usz.ch (MH)

Affiliation Department of Pathology, Institute of Neuropathology, UniversitätsSpital Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MH CL. Performed the experiments: GC IM CS LM CM MS IM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MB. Wrote the paper: CL.