Northeastern U.S. deer more susceptible to wasting disease than those to the west

Date:  June 6, 2019

Source:  Penn State

Some deer are more susceptible to chronic wasting disease that is spreading through herds of white-tailed deer across much of the United States, according to Penn State researchers, who have identified a panel of genetic markers that reliably predict which animals are most vulnerable to the contagious neurological disorder.

"The genetic variants that would make deer less susceptible to chronic wasting disease are in much lower frequency in the East, likely because they weren't needed," said David Walter, adjunct assistant professor of wildlife ecology. "Over a long period of time, their survivability may have been somehow favored by losing these genotypes. They weren't important until a disease like chronic wasting disease showed up. We have seen that deer with the more susceptible genotypes are in the majority."

Over the last decade or so, Walter's research group in the College of Agricultural Sciences has been studying how the movement, behavior and genetics of wild deer are affecting the spread of chronic wasting disease. Often referred to as CWD, it is a fatal prion disease affecting the deer family, and belongs to a group of similar diseases, such as mad cow disease and scrapie in sheep, called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

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