Special Issue "Novel Aspects of Bacterial AB5-Toxins"
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Bacterial Toxins".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2022) | Viewed by 10063
Special Issue Editors

Interests: actin; bacterial protein toxins; macrophages; rho-gtpases; cellular uptake and intracellular membrane transport of bacterial toxins; interaction of bacterial toxins with host cell chaperones; bacterial toxins as molecular trojan horses for drug delivery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Bacterial AB5 toxins consist of a highly specialized group of composite proteins, which have been implicated in serious human diseases. Current important members of the bacterial AB5 toxin family are cholera toxin (Ctx) of Vibrio cholerae, pertussis toxin (Ptx) of Bordetella pertussis, Shiga toxin (Stx), subtilase cytotoxin (SubAB), and heat-labile Enterotoxin (Lt) of pathogenic Escherichia coli. More recently, other bacterial AB5 toxins have been described, such as ArtAB of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and Ecx of E. coli. AB5 toxins share a similar hexameric architecture, consisting of an enzymatic subunit (A) and five receptor-binding B subunits that form a pentamer. Whereas the enzymatic A subunits mediate the toxic effects in their eukaryotic target cells, the B subunits guide the holotoxin to the target cells by specific receptor binding and finally deliver the A subunits into the cytosol where they interact with their substrate molecules. Binding, uptake, and intracellular transport of AB5 toxins follow similar paths but are toxin-specific, as described in the literature.
During recent years, interesting new aspects of AB5 toxins concerning subunit structures, assembly, binding, uptake, and the AB5 paradigm have been revealed by several authors. Moreover, attractive novel approaches to specifically inhibit toxin uptake and thereby cell intoxication were reported. The aim of this Special Issue is to present novel aspects of AB5 toxins to get more detailed insights into the structure and function of this important group of protein exotoxins.
Prof. Dr. Holger Barth
Prof. Dr. Herbert Schmidt
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- AB5 toxins
- Shiga toxin
- subtilase cytotoxin
- Pertussistoxin
- Choleratoxin
- subunit assembly
- binding
- translocation
- function
- inhibitors