Flechsig E, Hegyi I, Enari M, Schwarz P, Collinge J, Weissmann C
Department of Neurogenetics, Imperial College School of Medicine at St Mary's, London, UK.
Mol Med. 2001 Oct;7(10):679-84.
Prions are unusually resistant to conventional disinfection procedures. An electrode used intracerebrally on a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) patient transmitted the disease to two patients in succession and finally to a chimpanzee, despite attempted disinfection. Concerns that surgical instruments may transmit variant CJD have been raised by the finding of PrP(Sc), a surrogate marker for infectivity, in various tissues other than brain.
Stainless steel wire was exposed to scrapie-infected brain or brain homogenate, washed exhaustively and inserted into the brain of indicator mice to measure infectivity.
A contact time of 5 min with scrapie-infected mouse brain suffices to render steel wire highly infectious and insertion of infectious wire into the brain of an indicator mouse for 30 min suffices to cause disease. Infectivity bound to wires persists far longer in the brain than when injected as homogenate, which can explain the extraordinary efficiency of wire-mediated infection. No detectable amounts of PrP could be eluted with NaOH, however the presence of PrP on infectious wires was demonstrated by chemiluminescence. Several recommended sterilisation procedures inactivated wire-bound mouse prions, but exposure to 10% formaldehyde was insufficient.
Prions are readily and tightly bound to stainless steel surfaces and can transmit scrapie to recipient mice after short exposure times. This system mimics contaminated surgical instruments and will allow an assessment of sterilisation procedures.
朊病毒对传统消毒程序具有异常的抵抗力。尽管进行了消毒尝试，但在一名克雅氏病（CJD）患者脑部使用的电极还是将疾病相继传染给了两名患者，最终传染给了一只黑猩猩。在脑以外的各种组织中发现了感染性替代标志物PrP(Sc)，这引发了人们对手术器械可能传播变异型克雅氏病的担忧。
将不锈钢丝暴露于感染羊瘙痒病的脑组织或脑匀浆中，充分洗涤后插入指示小鼠的脑内以测量感染性。
与感染羊瘙痒病的小鼠脑接触5分钟就足以使钢丝具有高度传染性，将感染性钢丝插入指示小鼠脑内30分钟就足以引发疾病。与注射匀浆相比，钢丝上附着的感染性在脑内存留的时间长得多，这可以解释钢丝介导感染的非凡效率。用氢氧化钠无法洗脱可检测量的PrP，不过通过化学发光证明了感染性钢丝上存在PrP。几种推荐的灭菌程序可使钢丝上附着的小鼠朊病毒失活，但暴露于10%甲醛是不够的。
朊病毒很容易紧密地附着在不锈钢表面，短时间接触后就能将羊瘙痒病传染给受体小鼠。该系统模拟了受污染的手术器械，将有助于评估灭菌程序。
