The Sleeping Danger: Prion-contaminated Soil is Highly Infectious and is a Potential Hazard over Years

摘要

The persistence of infectious biomolecules in the environment and especially in soil constitutes a substantial challenge. This holds particularly true with respect to prions, the causative agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such a scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease (CJD) or chronic wasting disease (CWD). Although prion diseases like BSE or scrapie are without being perceived by the public at the moment, various newer studies clearly demonstrate that prions are able to persist in soil over years without losing their pathogenic activity leading to an enduring contamination of the environment with non assessable hazards so far.