Location: Virus and Prion Research
Project Number: 5030-32000-228-023-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Dec 17, 2025
End Date: Dec 31, 2026
Objective:
Project goals:
This work covers three primary objectives:
1) Asses the binding of biochar to PrPSc, the causative agent of chronic wasting
disease (CWD).
2) Evaluate the ability of biochar to inhibit or enhance the conversion of the
normal prion protein (PrPC) to PrPSc.
3) Evaluate the affects of biochar on the infectivity of CWD prions.
Collectively this will allow ARS and US Forest Service to evaluate the viability of amending soils with biochar to reduce the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) to susceptible animals on the landscape.
Approach:
The major tasks that are to be accomplished are:
1) Assess the binding of CWD prions to various biochar preparations produced by USFS. The analysis will involve incubating varying amounts of brain homogenates from CWD positive elk and/or deer with biochar and subsequent separation by centrifugation to determine the amount of remaining prion in the sample.
2) Evaluate the ability of biochar to inhibit or enhance the conversion of the normal prion protein to CWD prions using in-vitro conversion assays PMCA and RT-QuIC; and if biochar inhibits these assays as methods to detect CWD in environmental samples in areas treated with biochar.
3) Evaluate the effects of biochar on the infectivity of CWD prions using cell culture models capable of quantitative assessment of the amount of infectivity in samples such as brain, saliva, urine, or feces.
4) Evaluate the ability of biochar to inhibit movement of CWD prions in water runoff. Analysis will involve assessing the ability of aqueous solutions to elute prions bound to biochar.
5) USFS will continue to determine physical and chemical properties of all biochar types provided to ARS for evaluating capacity to bind CWD prions, including various physical, chemical, and proximate analyses such as pH, electrical conductivity, total ash and moisture and carbon content.
6) USFS will work with ARS to determine appropriate field study locations for biochar application and soil testing to determine field efficacy of the biochar to reduce CWD bioavailability.
The primary methologies used are standard laboratory procedures for the detection and quantification of prions prior to and after exposure to biochar. They include but are not limited to Real Time Quaking Induced Conversion (RT-QuIC), Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA), prion infectious cell culture assays, and mouse bioassay. If success is obtained as determined by these procedures field study locations will be utilized and efficacy of biochar reduction in CWD spread will be determined.