Toxins, Volume 8, Issue 6

The anti-CD20 mAb Rituximab has revolutionized lymphoma therapy, in spite of a number of unresponsive or relapsing patients. Immunotoxins, consisting of toxins coupled to antibodies, are being investigated for their potential ability to augment Ritux...

Ear rot is a serious disease that affects maize yield and grain quality worldwide. The mycotoxins are often hazardous to humans and livestock. In samples collected in China between 2009 and 2014, Fusarium verticillioides and F. graminearum species co...

Vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) is a secreted pore-forming toxin and one of the major virulence factors of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), which actively supports the persistence and survival of the bacteria in the special ecological niche of the hum...

The clostridia produce an arsenal of toxins to facilitate their survival within the host environment. TcsL is one of two major toxins produced by Clostridium sordellii, a human and animal pathogen, and is essential for disease pathogenesis of this ba...

VacA is a pore-forming toxin that has long been known to induce vacuolization in gastric epithelial cells and to be linked to gastric disorders caused by H. pylori infection. Its role as a major colonization and persistence determinant of H. pylori i...

Staphylococcal enterotoxin C2 (SEC2) is a classical superantigen (SAg), which can tremendously activate T lymphocytes at very low dosage, thus exerting its powerful antitumor activity. As an intravenous protein drug and a bacterial toxin, SEC2 has so...

Venomous snakes often display extensive variation in venom composition both between and within species. However, the mechanisms underlying the distribution of different toxins and venom types among populations and taxa remain insufficiently known. Ra...

Endoglin (CD105) is an accessory component of the TGF-β receptor complex, which is expressed in a number of tissues and over-expressed in the endothelial cells of tumor neovasculature. Targeting endoglin with immunotoxins containing type 2 ribosome-i...

The Helicobacter pylori vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA) is a secreted pore-forming toxin and a major virulence factor in the pathogenesis of H. pylori infection. While VacA is present in almost all strains, only some forms are toxigenic and pathogenic....

Programmed cell death in bacteria is generally associated with two-component toxin-antitoxin systems. The SpoIISABC system, originally identified in Bacillus subtilis, consists of three components: a SpoIISA toxin and the SpoIISB and SpoIISC antitoxi...

The carmine spider mite Tetranychus cinnabarinus (T. cinnabarinus) is a common polyphagous pest that attacks crops, vegetables, flowers, and so on. It is necessary to find lead compounds for developing novel, powerful, and environmentally-friendly ac...

Snake venom metalloproteinases (SVMPs) are abundant in the venoms of vipers and rattlesnakes, playing important roles for the snake adaptation to different environments, and are related to most of the pathological effects of these venoms in human vic...

One of the major toxins secreted by H. pylori is the Vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) named after its ability to induce the formation of “vacuole”-like membrane vesicles in the cytoplasm of gastric cells. VacA has been associated with the disruption of...

The wide distribution of cyanobacteria in aquatic environments leads to the risk of water contamination by cyanotoxins, which generate environmental and public health issues. Measurements of cell densities or pigment contents allow both the early det...

Inhibitors of aflatoxin production of aflatoxigenic fungi are useful for preventing aflatoxin contamination in crops. As methyl syringate weakly inhibits aflatoxin production, aflatoxin production inhibitory activities of additional alkyl syringates...

The venom proteome of the poorly studied desert coral snake Micrurus tschudii tschudii was unveiled using a venomic approach, which identified ≥38 proteins belonging to only four snake venom protein families. The three-finger toxins (3FTxs) constitut...

This study explores the effect of laboratory and industrial steaming on mussels with toxin concentrations above and below the legal limit. We used mild conditions for steaming, 100 °C for 5 min in industrial processing, and up to 20 min in small-scal...

Bacillus cereus is an opportunistic foodborne agent causing food poisoning and many infectious diseases. The heat-stable emetic toxin cereulide is one of the most prevalent toxins produced by pathogenic B. cereus, resulting in symptoms such as emesis...

Nitrosomonas europaea carries numerous toxin-antitoxin systems. However, despite the abundant representation in its chromosome, studies have not surveyed the underlying molecular functions in detail, and their biological roles remain enigmatic. In th...

The VacA toxin secreted by Helicobacter pylori enhances the ability of the bacteria to colonize the stomach and contributes to the pathogenesis of gastric adenocarcinoma and peptic ulcer disease. The amino acid sequence and structure of VacA are unre...

A systematic investigation was conducted in Lake Taihu in autumn of 2013 and 2014, in order to understand the environmental fate of microcystins (MCs) and evaluate the health risk from MCs. Samples of water, algal cells, macrophytes, shrimps and fish...

Zinc concentrations strongly influence aflatoxin accumulation in laboratory media and in food and feed crops. The presence of zinc stimulates aflatoxin production, and the absence of zinc impedes toxin production. Initial studies that suggested a lin...

Ingestion of staphylococcal enterotoxins preformed by Staphylococcus aureus in food leads to staphylococcal food poisoning, the most prevalent foodborne intoxication worldwide. There are five major staphylococcal enterotoxins: SEA, SEB, SEC, SED, and...

Secretory phospholipase A₂ (sPLA₂) is known as a major component of snake venoms and displays higher-order catalytic hydrolysis functions as well as a wide range of pathological effects. Atheris is not a notoriously dangerous genus of snakes although...

The unusual attribution of trace amounts of ochratoxin A in some Chinese food commodities to Penicillium polonicum is questioned by European experience in searches for ochratoxinogenic food-spoilage Penicillia, where mistaken attribution is now known...

My colleagues and I appreciate the comments and constructive suggestions on our manuscript “Mycobiota and Mycotoxins in Traditional Medicinal Seeds from China”.[...]

Chornic spinal cord injury (SCI) will induce bladder urothelium dysfunction. This study investigated the therapeutic effects on urothelial dysfunction after repeated detrusor injections of onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT-A) in SCI patients with neurogenic d...

Cancer stem cells (CSC) are capable of promoting tumor initiation and self-renewal, two important hallmarks of carcinoma formation. This population comprises a small percentage of the tumor mass and is highly resistant to chemotherapy, causing the mo...

The levels of 26 mycotoxins were determined in 147 samples of the grain of cereals cultivated in five regions of Poland during the 2014 growing season. The HPLC-HRMS (time-of-flight) analytical technique was used. An analytical procedure to simultane...

Onabotulintoxin A (BontA) is an efficacious preventive treatment for chronic migraine, though the specific mechanism of action is still under discussion. The study aims: (1) To evaluate pain processing modifications in chronic migraine patients (CM)...

Okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysistoxins (DTXs) are the main toxins responsible for diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) intoxications during harmful algal blooms (HABs). Although the genotoxic and cytotoxic responses to OA have been evaluated in vitro...

The contaminations of Fusarium mycotoxins in grains and related products, and the exposure in human body are considerable concerns in food safety and human health worldwide. The common Fusarium mycotoxins include fumonisins, T-2 toxin, deoxynivalenol...

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays a key role in tumor progression. The cells undergoing EMT upregulate the expression of cell motility-related proteins and show enhanced migration and invasion. The hallmarks of EMT in cancer cells include...