Behavior of Prions in the Environment: Implications for Prion Biology.

The article describes the mechanism by which the prison disease, chronic wasting disease (CWD), is laterally transmitted to deer, elk and moose populations. Prions, which comprised of a misfolded isoform of the normal prion protein, PrPC, into the infectious conformation, are released into the environment and interact with quartz sands and soils. Studies which examined the role of soil on prion infectivity through protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) are cited.