PRNP and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: Lacroux et al. (2014) have developed a PMCA assay using ovine Q171 substrate which can efficiently amplify BSE/vCJD prions regardless of the species of origin. Therefore, with their methodology, PrP sequence homology between seed and substrate does not appear to be crucial for BSE/vCJD prion replication in vitro (Lacroux et al., 2014). It has also been shown that unseeded saPMCA using leporid PrPC substrate could lead to the de novo formation of PrPSc, which could induce disease when used to inoculate rabbits (Chianini et al., 2012).