Insect-specific toxins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) provide a valuable resource for pest suppression. Here we review the different strategies that have been employed to enhance toxicity against specific target species including those that have evolved resistance to Bt, or to modify the host range of Bt crystal (Cry) and cytolytic (Cyt) toxins. These strategies include toxin truncati...

Thirty mycotoxins and 5 chemically modified toxins were tested for DNA-attacking ability in the rec assay using the recombination-deficient mutant of Bacillus subtilis M45 (rec-) and the parent strain H17 (rec+). Six Penicillium toxins (citrinin, penicillic acid, patulin, (-)-luteoskyrin, (+)-rugulosin, and PR-toxin), 5 Aspergillus toxins (aflatoxins B1 and G1, sterigmatocystin, O-acetylsterigm...

Peptide toxins synthesized by venomous animals have been extensively studied in the last decades. To be useful to the scientific community, this knowledge has been stored, annotated and made easy to retrieve by several databases. The aim of this article is to present what type of information users can access from each database. ArachnoServer and ConoServer focus on spider toxins and cone snail ...

Voltage-activated sodium (Nav) channels are essential in generating and propagating nerve impulses, placing them amongst the most widely targeted ion channels by toxins from venomous organisms. An increasing number of spider toxins have been shown to interfere with the voltage-driven activation process of mammalian Nav channels, possibly by interacting with one or more of their voltage sensors....

Among snake venom toxins, three-finger toxins - a superfamily of nonenzymatic proteins - are found in the venoms of all families of snakes. They share a common structure of three β-stranded loops extending from a central core containing all four conserved disulfide bonds. Despite the similar structural fold, they exhibit a wide variety of biological effects. This review describes briefly the st...

Gangliosides, glycosphingolipids present in the membranes of neuronal and other cells, are natural receptors for a number of bacterial toxins and viruses whose sensitive detection is of interest in clinical medicine as well as in biological warfare or terrorism incidents. Liposomes containing gangliosides mimic cells that are invaded by bacterial toxins and can be used as sensitive probes for d...

In the “Message from the Editor-in-Chief” posted on the Toxins website (see www.mdpi.com/journal/toxins/toxins-flyer.pdf), we wrote: “The editorial board and staff of Toxins are dedicated to providing a timely, peer-reviewed outlet for exciting, innovative primary research articles and concise, informative reviews from investigators in the myriad of disciplines contributing to our knowledge on ...

We used the knockout mice lacking gangliosides and evaluated their response to tetanus and botulinum toxins. We found that tetanus toxin and botulinum type A or B toxin was less toxic in the knockout mice. We conclude that the toxins bind to the gangliosides on the synapses in the initial step of intoxication prior to penetration of the toxins into the neural cells.

Key words (±)-saxitoxin - paralytic shellfish toxins Eschenmoser sulfide contraction Biginelli reaction Curtius rearrangement Meerwein's salt

Many animal toxins may target the same molecules that need to be controlled in certain pathologies; therefore, some toxins have led to the formulation of drugs that are presently used, and many other drugs are still under development. Nevertheless, collecting sufficient toxins from the original source might be a limiting factor in studying their biological activities. Thus, molecular biology te...