Toxins, Volume 8, Issue 1

The editors of Toxins would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following reviewers for assessing manuscripts in 2015. [...]

Anthrax toxin is the major virulence factor produced by Bacillus anthracis. Protective antigen (PA) is the key component of the toxin and has been confirmed as the main target for the development of toxin inhibitors. The inhibition of the binding of...

Ants (Formicidae) represent a taxonomically diverse group of hymenopterans with over 13,000 extant species, the majority of which inject or spray secretions from a venom gland. The evolutionary success of ants is mostly due to their unique eusocialit...

Aspergillus flavus produces a variety of toxic secondary metabolites; among them, the aflatoxins (AFs) are the most well known. These compounds are highly mutagenic and carcinogenic, particularly AFB₁. A. flavus is capable of colonizing a number of e...

The efficacy of color sorting on reducing aflatoxin levels in shelled apricot kernels was assessed. Naturally-contaminated kernels were submitted to an electronic optical sorter or blanched, peeled, and manually sorted to visually identify and sort d...

Oxaliplatin, a chemotherapy drug used to treat colorectal cancer, induces specific sensory neurotoxicity signs that are aggravated by cold and mechanical stimuli. Here we examined the preventive effects of Bee Venom (BV) derived phospholipase A₂ (bvP...

Clostridium difficile infections can induce mild to severe diarrhoea and the often associated characteristic pseudomembranous colitis. Two protein toxins, the large glucosyltransferases TcdA and TcdB, are the main pathogenicity factors that can induc...

The multifactorial etiology of massive Crassostrea gigas summer mortalities results from complex interactions between oysters, opportunistic pathogens and environmental factors. In a field survey conducted in 2014 in the Mediterranean Thau Lagoon (Fr...

Lake Taihu is the third-largest freshwater lake in China and has been suffering from cyanobacterial blooms for over two decades. The northern part of the lake, Meiliang Bay, is known to be at high risk of dense and sustained Microcystis blooms and to...

Cancer patients who undergo surgery or radiation can develop persistent focal pain at the site of radiation or surgery. Twelve patients who had surgery or radiation for local cancer and failed at least two analgesic medications for pain control were...

Ustilaginoidins are bis-naphtho-γ-pyrone mycotoxins isolated from the rice false smut balls (FSBs) infected by the pathogen Villosiclava virens in rice spikelets on panicles. In order to obtain large amounts of pure ustilaginoidins to further evaluat...

In many rangeland settings, there is more than one potential poisonous plant. Two poisonous plants that are often found growing simultaneously in the same location in North American rangelands are death camas (Zigadenus spp.) and low larkspur (Delphi...

Despite the medical urgency presented by cubozoan envenomations, ineffective and contradictory first-aid management recommendations persist. A critical barrier to progress has been the lack of readily available and reproducible envenomation assays th...

The special issue “Enterotoxins: Microbial Proteins and Host Cell Dysregulation” is comprised of research articles and reviews covering a diverse group of toxins that affect the gut and dysregulate host immune response in mechanistically different wa...

Neuropathic pain includes postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), and trigeminal neuralgia, and so on. Although various drugs have been tried to treat neuropathic pain, the effectiveness of the drugs sometimes may be limited...

The mycotoxin, aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) is a hepatotoxic, immunotoxic, and mutagenic contaminant of food and animal feeds. In poultry, AFB₁ can be maternally transferred to embryonated eggs, affecting development, viability and performance after hatch. Do...

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) are foodborne pathogens responsible for the development of bloody diarrhea and renal failure in humans. Many environmental factors have been shown to regulate the production of Shiga toxin 2 (Stx2), the main...

Potent Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) represent a threat to public health and safety. Botulism is a disease caused by BoNT intoxication that results in muscle paralysis that can be fatal. Sensitive assays capable of detecting BoNTs from different subs...

Aflatoxins, which are produced by Aspergillus flavus, are toxic to humans, livestock, and pets. The value of maize (Zea mays) grain is markedly reduced when contaminated with aflatoxin. Plant resistance and biological control using non-toxin producin...

Paralytic Shellfish Toxin blooms are common worldwide, which makes their monitoring crucial in the prevention of poisoning incidents. These toxins can be monitored by a variety of techniques, including mouse bioassay, receptor binding assay, and liqu...

Several species of the genus Veratrum that produce steroid alkaloids are commonly used to treat pain and hypertension in China and Europe. However, Veratrum alkaloids (VAs) induce serious cardiovascular toxicity. In China, Veratrum treatment often le...

In this study, we developed a self-assembly pipette tip solid-phase extraction (PTSPE) method using a high molecular weight polymer material (PAX) as the adsorbent for the determination of domoic acid (DA) in human urine samples by liquid chromatogra...

To detect and monitor G-group aflatoxins in agricultural products, we generated class-specific monoclonal antibodies that specifically recognized aflatoxins G₁ and G₂. Of the final three positive and stable hybridomas obtained, clone 2G6 produced a m...

Increasing frequencies of 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (3-ADON)-producing strains of Fusarium graminearum (3-ADON chemotype) have been reported in North America and Asia. 3-ADON is nearly nontoxic at the level of the ribosomal target and has to be deacety...

Snake species within genus Bothrops are responsible for more than 80% of the snakebites occurring in South America. The species that cause most envenomings in Argentina, B. diporus, is widely distributed throughout the country, but principally found...

Recent studies have examined lipophilic marine toxins (LMTs) in shellfish and toxic algae worldwide, but the occurrence and seasonal variations of LMTs in commercial clams (including Mactra veneriformis, Ruditapes philippinarum, Meretrix meretrix, an...

MT10107 is botulinum neurotoxin type A derived drug which utilizes the 150 kDa portion without complexing proteins and human serum albumin contents. To evaluate the efficacy and the safety of MT10107, it was compared with onabotulinumtoxinA in this d...

Scorpions are among the oldest terrestrial arthropods, which are distributed worldwide, except for Antarctica and some Pacific islands. Scorpion envenomation represents a public health problem in several parts of the world. Mexico harbors the highest...

In traditional medicine, Carica papaya leaf has been used for a wide range of therapeutic applications including skin diseases and cancer. In this study, we investigated the in vitro cytotoxicity of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of Carica papaya lea...

We studied the interaction between deoxynivalenol (DON)-feeding and a subsequent pre- and post-hepatic immune stimulus with the hypothesis that the liver differently mediates the acute phase reaction (APR) in pigs. Barrows (n = 44) were divided into...

Anthrax toxin causes anthrax pathogenesis and expression levels of ANTXR2 (anthrax toxin receptor 2) are strongly correlated with anthrax toxin susceptibility. Previous studies found that ANTXR2 transcript abundance varies considerably in individuals...