resistance of soil-bound prions to rumen digestionsoil-bound朊病毒的抵抗瘤胃消化.pdfVIP

Resistance of Soil-Bound Prions to Rumen Digestion 1¤ 1 2 Samuel E. Saunders , Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt *, Jason C. Bartz 1 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Peter Kiewit Institute, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America, 2 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America Abstract Before prion uptake and infection can occur in the lower gastrointestinal system, ingested prions are subjected to anaerobic digestion in the rumen of cervids and bovids. The susceptibility of soil-bound prions to rumen digestion has not been evaluated previously. In this study, prions from infectious brain homogenates as well as prions bound to a range of soils and soil minerals were subjected to in vitro rumen digestion, and changes in PrP levels were measured via western blot. Binding to clay appeared to protect noninfectious hamster PrPc from complete digestion, while both unbound and soil-bound infectious PrPSc proved highly resistant to rumen digestion. In addition, no change in intracerebral incubation period was observed following active rumen digestion of unbound hamster HY TME prions and HY TME prions bound to a silty clay loam soil. These results demonstrate that both unbound and soil-bound prions readily survive rumen digestion without a reduction in infectivity, further supporting the potential for soil-mediated transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) and scrapie in the environment. Citation: Saunders SE, Bartelt-Hunt SL, Bartz JC (2012) Resistance of Soil-Bound Prions to Rumen Digestion. PLoS ONE 7(8): e44051. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0044051 Editor: Jiyan Ma, Ohio State University, United States