Neurological Correlates

If metals in soil stabilize mad cow prions, do metals in soil somehow get in the food chain, go to the brain,  and stabilize similar structuresl like the tangled up neurofibrilliary gunk in Parkinsons or Alzheimers?

Davies P, Brown DR (2009) Manganese Enhances Prion Protein Survival in Model Soils and Increases Prion Infectivity to Cells. PLoS ONE 4(10): e7518. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007518

Prions, thought to be the transmissible agent of mad cow disease, are presumably stabilized when manganese binds to a more or less generic metal-binding region of the protein. Manganese (and other metals) are associated with taking otherwise more or less benign neuropeptides and causing them to link together to form neurofibrilliary tangles.

Now we see that manganese enhances the soil- survivability of  the mad cow infectious agent. And, manganese accumulates in the leafy green parts of plants.

Manganese is present in soils irrigated with city effluent, e.g., sterilized sewerage sludge. Sterilized sewerage sludge from city effluent, one would think, would make a dandy fertilizer, and be recycled and green and all of that. The trouble is that most cities mix their industrial waste with their household waste.  Industrial wastes have the  heavy metals. (If it were only household waste, probably SSRI’s would be the big problem, and we could all probably use a little more serotonin, maybe.)  Where it’s mixed, heavy metals are in the final mixture.

So I wonder if there is some connection between manganese, city water, and mad cow. And the presence of metals in the water and speeding up abeta fibril formation in Alzheimers.

(See previous post here on brain metals, That old substantia nigra’s got me in its spell, that old substantia nigra that you weave so well)

Aaron D. Gitler, Alessandra Chesi, Melissa L. Geddie, Katherine E. Strathearn, Shusei Hamamichi, Kathryn J. Hill, Kim A. Caldwell, Guy A. Caldwell, Antony A. Cooper, Jean-Christophe Rochet, and Susan Lindquist, “α–Synuclein is part of a diverse and highly conserved interaction network that includes PARK9 and manganese toxicity,” Nat Genet. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 September 1. Nat Genet. 2009 March; 41(3): 308–315. Published online 2009 February 1. doi: 10.1038/ng.300.

See, Binolfi Andrés; Rasia Rodolfo M; Bertoncini Carlos W; Ceolin Marcelo; Zweckstetter Markus; Griesinger Christian; Jovin Thomas M; Fernández Claudio O, “Interaction of alpha-synuclein with divalent metal ions reveals key differences: a link between structure, binding specificity and fibrillation enhancement., “Journal of the American Chemical Society (2006)128:9893-901.

There is manganese in naturally occuring animal salt licks, as well as commercial ones — does this encourage mad cow?

Dormaar, J. F. and Walker, B. D. 1996. Elemental content of animal licks along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta, Canada. Can. J. Soil Sci. 76: 509–512.

Murtaza, G., Ghafoor, A., and Qadir, M., “Accumulation and implications of cadmium, cobalt and manganese in soils and vegetables irrigated with city effluent, ” Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 88: 100-107 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.3052 US: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.3052

(This last paper is from Pakistan, but is consistent with your loyal bloggist’s personal extremely traumatic experience. One of the jobs your loyal bloggist held that continues to give me nightmares is that of a student intern at certain agronomy department from a Large State University that shall go unnamed. My job was to collect water samples from a research plot that had been fertilized with sterilized sewerage sludge.  There were poplar saplings growing neatly in grids on this particular research plot, out in the middle of who knows where with not a shred of civilization in sight, and no other living being except some unremarkable horses who would always come over to mooch apples, which I bought and paid for with my own vanishingly small paycheck. Well, that’s not true, there were lots of living things, like insects (and if you’ve never seen a cicada-killer carrying around a dead cicada and diving at your head, you’re missing out on a real-life horror movie scene), rodents and reptiles that made the workplace culture so much more attractive. Not only that but I had to drive a pick up truck, with three-on-a-tree. Ugh. If you work in a lab with air conditioning, an air-hockey table and a capuccino maker, count your blessings. Plus, deer came and ate the poplar leaves, so I couldn’t collect them and the lab head would be miffed that we weren’t getting data. So he took his hunting rifle out there, and the next thing we know, he shows up in a new, carmel-colored, butter-soft, well-tailored deerskin blazer and has a venison-sausage stored in the walk in freezer. (I should add, the data we did get demontrated a high concentration of metals in the leaves). My hours were from about 6 am to about noon when I would pass out from heat exhaustion. I should have sued. If anyone out there is considering majoring in any type of science that involves going outside to get data, my advice: don’t.)