The technique initially incubates a small amount of abnormal prion with an excess of normal protein, so that some conversion takes place.
[citation needed] PMCA was originally developed to, in vitro, mimic prion replication with a similar efficiency to the in vivo process, but with accelerated kinetics.
[8] PMCA possesses the ability to generate millions infectious units, starting with the equivalent to one PrPSc oligomer; well below the infectivity threshold.
It opens a great promise for development of a highly sensitive detection of PrPSc, and for understanding the molecular basis of prion replication.
Indeed, PMCA has been used by various groups to PrPSc in blood of animals experimentally infected with prions during both the symptomatic[9] and pre-symptomatic phases[10] as well as in urine.