A Toxic Quick Change Artist

The University of Bern molecular biologists have discovered a mechanism that will enable a deadly toxin to penetrate and destroy human cells. This could serve as a rational framework for the design and development of some new anti-toxin drugs. Pathogenic bacteria produce a variety of toxins in order to attack their hosts. Some of the toxins have been classed as potential bioterrorism weapons, as a particularly efficient and deadly type of toxin that punches holes in the membrane of host cells and kills them. These are pore-forming toxins and found in a large number of bacteria.

The bacterium called aeromonas hydrophila …read more