Detection of pathogens by all living organisms is the primary step needed to implement a coherent and efficient immune response. This implies a mediation by different soluble and/or membrane-anchored proteins related to innate immune receptors called PRRs (pattern-recognition receptors) to trigger immune signaling pathways. In most invertebrates, their roles have been inferred by analogy to tho...

The cytotoxic enterotoxin Act from a diarrheal isolate, SSU, of Aeromonas hydrophila is aerolysin related and crucial to the pathogenesis of Aeromonas infections. To elucidate the role of environmental signals which influence the expression of the cytotoxic enterotoxin gene (act), a portion of the act gene, including the putative promoter region, was fused in frame to a truncated alkaline phosp...

Ekino et al. [1] reported the cloning and characterization of a novel cytotoxic protein (Parasporin-5) produced by Bacillus thuringiensis strain A1100. The 33.8-kDa inactive precursor protein exhibited strong cytocidal activity upon proteinase K activation against several mammalian (cancer) cell lines, and showed slight homology with Cry and aerolysin-type β-pore-forming toxins. Most research c...

Influenza virus is responsible for annual epidemics that cause severe illness in ~5 million people worldwide. Evidence has shown that influenza infection engages the NLRP3 inflammasome complex in dendritic cells and macrophages1–4. NLRP3 forms a multiprotein complex with the adaptor protein ASC (pycard) and caspase-1, which leads to the catalytic cleavage of the immature (‘pro’) forms of interl...

In May 1996, a previously healthy and normally developed 6-month-old female infant was hospitalized after a 7-day period of watery and finally bloody diarrhea. Upon admission, the child was in poor general condition. Laboratory tests and ultrasound examinations of the kidneys revealed acute renal failure with marked metabolic acidosis and moderate anemia. The child’s creatinine level was 442 mm...

The virulence factors of pathogenic bacteria are major secretory proteins that are directly linked to their pathogenicity. These secretory proteins are translocated across the membranes of bacterial cells by translocase nanomachines, which consists of integral membrane proteins. The periodontal pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis, secretes trypsin-like proteases(gingipains)either as a large comp...