Certain bacteria, such as enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7, are difficult to treat because destruction of the cells by standard antibiotics releases bacterial toxins. Pavel Kitov et al. have created a class of multivalent inhibitors that can bind and sequester such toxins through multiple, low-affinity interactions. The authors designed a polymer scaffold that aggregated the E. coli S...

Large bacterial protein toxins autotranslocate functional effector domains to the eukaryotic cell cytosol, resulting in alterations to cellular functions that ultimately benefit the infecting pathogen. Among these toxins, the clostridial glucosylating toxins (CGTs) produced by Gram-positive bacteria and the multifunctional-autoprocessing RTX (MARTX) toxins of Gram-negative bacteria have distinc...

Plants have been extensively investigated for exploring their therapeutic potentials, but there are comparatively scanty reports on drugs derived from animal kingdom, except for hormones. During last decade, the toxins that are used for defense by the animals, have been isolated and found useful tools for physiological and pharmacological studies, besides giving valuable leads to drug developme...

Many different foodborne diseases have been described. For example, Shigella bacteria, hepatitis A virus and Norwalk virus were shown as a unwashed hands microorganisms, but pathogen Campylobacter and Escherichia coli were named as raw and undercooked meat and poultry or raw milk and untreated water born bacteria. However, two of them: Listeria monocytogenes and Yersinia enterocolitica are know...

Immunotoxins consist of monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies conjugated to bacterial or plant toxins. The toxins used are typically of the A-B type in which a toxic A chain is coupled to a B chain responsible for cell binding and facilitation of A chain entry into the cytosol. Two broad strategies have been followed: coupling intact toxins, or A chains alone, to antibodies. This review examines ...

To establish the role of the Apx toxins in the pathogenesis of porcine pleuropneumonia, specific-pathogen-free pigs were inoculated deeply endobronchially with either culture filtrates of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae serotype 8 or 9, culture filtrates depleted of the Apx toxins by affinity chromatography, depleted culture filtrate supplemented with purified recombinant Apx toxins (rApx), or ...

To inhibit protein synthesis and induce cell death, plant ricin toxin and bacterial Shiga toxins enter the cell through the endocytic and retrograde secretory pathways. Stechmann et al. (2010) now identify two small-molecule inhibitors that selectively block endosome-to-Golgi retrieval of ricin and Shiga toxins and protect mice from ricin's deadly effects.

Microbial communities are shaped by interactions among their constituent members. Some Gram-negative bacteria employ type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) to inject protein toxins into neighboring cells. These interactions have been theorized to affect the composition of host-associated microbiomes, but the role of T6SSs in the evolution of gut communities is not well understood. We report the disc...

Microorganisms that cause persistent infection often exhibit specific adaptations that allow them to avoid the adaptive immune response. Recently, several bacterial toxins have been shown in vitro to disrupt immune cell functions. However, it remains to be established whether these activities are relevant during infection and whether these toxins have specifically evolved to disrupt the adaptiv...