Envenoming following scorpion sting is a common emergency in many parts of the world. During scorpion envenoming, highly toxic small polypeptides of the venom diffuse rapidly within the victim causing serious medical problems. The exploration of toxin structure-function relationship would benefit from the generation of soluble recombinant scorpion toxins in Escherichia coli. We developed an in ...

Tetanus neurotoxin (molecular weight approximately 160,000) was purified from bacterial extracts (intracellular toxin) and mildly trypsinized and from culture filtrates (extracellular toxin). Both purified preparations could be dissociated reversibly into two polypeptide chains, with molecular weights of 53,000 (fragment alpha) and 107,000 (fragment beta), by treatment with 100 mM dithiothreito...

Bordetella pertussis, the bacterium that causes whooping cough, secretes an adenylate cyclase toxin (ACT) that must be post-translationally palmitoylated in the bacterium cytosol to be active. The toxin targets phagocytes expressing the CD11b/CD18 integrin receptor. It delivers a catalytic adenylate cyclase domain into the target cell cytosol producing a rapid increase of intracellular cAMP con...

In an earlier communication (1), it was shown that treatment with cortisone caused a marked alteration in the response of rabbits to an injection of endotoxin from certain Gram-negative microorganishas. In normal animals, an intradermal injection of meningococcal or Serratia marcescens toxin resulted in a vigorous local inflammatory reaction, with visible erythema and edema of the involved skin...

IMPORTANCE Contact granuloma is a difficult-to-treat laryngeal disorder associated with vocal abuse, habitual throat clearing, and laryngopharyngeal reflux. It has a high propensity for persistence and recurrence despite many treatment alternatives. OBJECTIVE To present our experience with recurrent contact granuloma treated with microlaryngoscopic excision and botulinum toxin injection. DE...

The relation of the lethal toxin to the hemolysin produced by Clostridium septicum, strain 44, has been investigated. The following results suggest that the hemolytic and lethal actions of crude toxin are functions of a single substance or that they are functions of two substances which have similar physical, chemical, and antigenic properties. (1) Within the limits of experimental error, the l...

Conventional automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) is prescribed as a repetition of the same dwell time and the same fill volume delivered by the cycler during the dialysis session. Nevertheless, it is well recognized that a cycle with a short dwell time and a small fill volume favors ultrafiltration (UF), while a cycle with a long dwell time and a large fill volume favors uremic toxin removal. T...