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Home › Topics › Infectious Diseases › Infections A-Z › Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) › Abnormal prion protein prevalence studies ›National Anonymous Tissue Archive
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National Anonymous Tissue Archive

NATA was set up in 2004 to prospectively collect 100,000 tonsils pairs obtained after routine tonsillectomies in England and Scotland and to test these samples for abnormal prion protein.  Only tissue not required for patient care, which would normally be discarded, is collected.   

Analysis of over 90,000 tonsil pairs have been completed so far in this tonsil survey, over 17,000 of which are from the birth cohort in which most vCJD cases have arisen (1961-1985).  The majority have been tested for abnormal prion protein by two commercial enzyme immunoassays (EIAs), and a small proportion selected for other analytical tests.   

The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) recommended in a Position Statement on the Prevalence of Subclinical vCJD Infections that the collection and testing of tonsils should continue until over 20,000 pairs of tonsils from the 1961 to 1985 birth cohort are archived and tested1. To achieve this, tonsil specimens will continue to be collected from over 90 hospitals in England and Scotland but, in those hospitals which perform more than 100 adult tonsillectomies per year, only tonsil pairs taken from adults will be collected.  Both adult and paediatric specimens will be collected from hospitals performing less adult tonsillectomies than this.  Collection and testing of the required number should be achieved by March 2012. 

Initial results from analysis of 63,007 of the tonsil samples, indicated that all tonsils were negative so far for the detection of PrPCJD protein2.  Results from smaller-scale studies were published earlier3,4.

The project is managed by the CJD Team and the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Unit, at the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infections on behalf of the Department of Health.

1. Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC). Prevalence of subclinical variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease infections. August 2008. SEAC position statement.

2. Clewley J, Kelly CM, Andrews N, Vogliqi K, Mallinson G, Kaisar M, et al. Prevalence of disease related prion protein in anonymous tonsil specimens in Britain: cross sectional opportunistic survey. BMJ 2009; 338: b1442.

3..Ironside JW, Hilton DA, Ghani AC, Johnston NJ, Conyers L, McCardle LM. Retrospective study of prion-protein accumulation in tonsil and appendix tissue. Lancet 2000; 355:1693.

4. Hilton DA, Ghani AC, Conyers L, Edwards P, McCardle LM, Penney M. Accumulation of prion protein in tonsil and appendix: review of tissue samples. BMJ 2002; 325:633.