title: Survival of scrapie virus after 3 years' interment.
abstract: Supernatant fluid from a scrapie-infected hamster brain homogenate was mixed with soil, packed into perforated petri dishes that were then embedded within soil-containing pots, and buried in a garden for 3 years. Between 2 and 3 log units of the input infectivity of nearly 5 log units survived this exposure, with little leaching of virus into deeper soil layers. These results have implications for environmental contamination by scrapie and by similar agents, including those of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of CNS Studies, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Gajdusek
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001923:Brain Chemistry; D006224:Cricetinae; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D011328:Prions / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014773:Virology / Q000379:methods; D014775:Virus Activation
chemical_list: D011328:Prions