Prions in the environment: occurrence, fate and mitigation

Area of Science:

• Veterinary Science
• Environmental Science
• Biochemistry

Background:

• Scrapie and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) are horizontally transmissible prion diseases.
• The environment acts as a reservoir for infectious prions, sustaining disease incidence in wild and captive cervids.
• Current methods for detecting prions in environmental samples are insufficient.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the significance of environmental prion contamination.
• To emphasize the need for environmentally relevant prion models in research.
• To underscore the importance of prion structural changes in infectivity and pathology.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing knowledge on prion environmental stability and behavior.
• Discussion of prion-soil interactions, including binding, conformational changes, and transport.
• Consideration of potential prion detection and mitigation strategies.

Main Results:

• Prions bind strongly to soil and retain infectivity.
• Environmental exposure can alter prion structure, impacting infectivity and pathology.
• The development of sensitive environmental prion detection methods is lacking.

Conclusions:

• Environmental prion contamination is a critical factor in disease persistence.
• Further research into prion-soil interactions and structural changes is necessary.
• Enzyme treatments and composting are potential alternatives to incineration for prion mitigation.