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iayork t1_jbjxuxb wrote

Probably not.

> Mother-to-offspring prion transmission appears to be prion-strain specific as evidence in other animal species including humans, Syrian hamsters and sheep infected with the classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) agent show that progeny from infected females at the moment of gestation do not develop prion disease in the long-term

Detection of CWD prions in naturally infected white-tailed deer fetuses and gestational tissues by PMCA

As that article and several others show, some prion diseases such as chronic wasting disease of deer can spread from mother to fetus, but there’s no evidence of that ever having happened in humans.

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iayork t1_jbkfq5k wrote

Yes, certainly. That's why there are multiple different prion diseases in humans, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome,Fatal Familial Insomnia, and Kuru.

>Although PrPC is encoded by the host genome, prions themselves encipher many phenotypic TSE variants, known as prion strains. Prion strains are TSE isolates that, after inoculation into distinct hosts, cause disease with consistent characteristics, such as incubation period, distinct patterns of PrPSc distribution and spongiosis and relative severity of the spongiform changes in the brain. The existence of such strains poses a fascinating challenge to prion research.

--Insights into prion strains and neurotoxicity

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