comparative study of cytotoxic effect of enterohemorrhagic escherichia coli verotoxin1 on vero and raji cell lines

objective: verotoxin is a member of shiga toxin family. this family contains ab protein toxins with an enzymatic (a) and a binding (b) compartment. cells that have receptor (gb3) are sensitive to cytotoxic effects of toxin. it has been shown that various tumor cells have gb3 receptor and are selectively sensitive to apoptotic effect of verotoxin. studies on tumor cell lines and laboratory animals have shown antineoplastic and antiangiogenesis effects of this toxin. the aim of this study was comparison of cytotoxic effect of verotoxin 1 on two cell lines: vero (gold standard for evaluation of cytotoxic effect of verotoxin) and raji (a cell of a cultured line of lymphoblastoid cells derived from a human burkitt's lymphoma patients). materials and methods: the toxigenic strain was cultured and the production of toxin was evaluated by reverse passive latex agglutination test. verotoxin 1 was purified by affinity chromatography. vero and raji cell were treated with serial dilutions of toxin, and viability was evaluated by mtt test. results: our result indicated that verotoxin has cytotoxic effect on raji cell lines. this effect is directly related to toxin concentration. differences on cytotoxicity of toxin on raji cells at 1:4-1:128 dilutions in relation to cytotoxicity of toxin on vero cells at the same dilutions were considered statistically significant (p