The study of the effects of the living pathogenic organisms upon the animal body has been succeeded by an era in which especial attent-ion has been directed to the influence of their soluble products. The researches of Oertel* upon human diphtheria, of Babes t and of Welch and Flexner$ upon the experimental form of the disease, the latter including the effects of the soluble products of the gro...

This review provides a historical overview of the research on plant ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs), starting from the first studies at the end of eighteenth century involving the purification of abrin and ricin, as well as the immunological experiments of Paul Erlich. Interest in these plant toxins was revived in 1970 by the observation of their anticancer activity, which has given rise ...

BACKGROUND Abrus precatorius seeds traditionally used for the treatment of sciatica and alopecia contains the toxic protein, abrin, a Type II Ribosome Inactivating Protein. Ayurveda recommends the use of Abrus seeds after the Shodhana process (detoxification). OBJECTIVE The current study was aimed at performing the Shodhana process, swedana (boiling) of Abrus precatorius seeds using water as ...

We have devised a method utilizing a monoclonal antibody-toxin conjugate (LICR-LON-Fib75/abrin A-chain) for ridding bone marrow of infiltrating breast cancer cells to rescue patients with autologous bone marrow following high dose therapy. Initially we examined the activity of this conjugate in vitro. Five of seven human breast cancer cell lines were killed following exposure at 10(-8) M for 2 ...

A number of compounds that interfere with glycoprotein synthesis and transport have been tested for their ability to sensitize cells to cancerostatic protein toxins. Tunicamycin, swainsonine, cycloheximide, and puromycin sensitized Vero cells and HeLa cells to abrin and ricin, as we have found previously with monensin (K. Sandvig and S. Olsnes, J. Biol. Chem., 257: 7504-7513, 1982). Cycloheximi...