Journal
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Volume 38, Issue 7, Pages 1638-1644Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2005.11.018
Keywords
prion proteins; scrapie; prion diseases; proteins adsorption
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Prions, are proteinaceous particles recognized as the agents of a class of neurodegenerative disorders, called transmissible spongiform. encephalopathies (TSE), or prion diseases. Epidemiological data suggest that TSE-contaminated environments may serve as source of infectivity, but there is no information about adsorption of prions onto soil. We carried out experiments by mixing, healthy, or scrapie-infected hamster brains homogenates with three types of soil suspended in different buffers: (i) two saline buffers, i.e., phosphate buffer solution (PBS) and CaCl2 solution; (ii) a mix of nondenaturing detergents, i.e., Triton X-100 and sodium deoxycholate (DOC) solution; (iii) a non-ionic detergent, i.e., lauryl maltoside; (iv) two anionic detergents, i.e., Sarkosyl or sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS); and (v) a chaotropic agent, i.e., urea. The unbound prion proteins were detected in the supernatants (after centrifugation of soil suspension) by Western blotting. Results clearly demonstrate that both the no infectious (PrPC) and infectious (PrPSc) forms are adsorbed by all soils. Only 1% sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS) partially impeded the association of PrPC, but not that of PrPSc with the sandy loam soil. Agents with different interacting properties towards hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic domains failed to extract PrPSc from sediments of soil-brain homogenate mixtures. The strong interaction of PrPSc with soil favors the accumulation of prions in soils, especially if amended with prion-containing organic fertilizers and/or whenever TSE-affected animal carcasses, placenta, and excreta in general are buried or laid at the soil surface. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available