Programmed necrosis is a mechanism of cell death that has been described for neuronal excitotoxicity and ischemia/reperfusion injury, but has not been extensively studied in the context of exposure to bacterial exotoxins. The alpha-toxin of Clostridium septicum is a beta-barrel pore-forming toxin and a potent cytotoxin; however, the mechanism by which it induces cell death has not been elucidat...

background and objectives: clostridium perfringens is more prevalent type of clostridia genus isolated from the intestinal tract of ostrich ( struthio camelus ). necrotic enteritis (ne) is a potentially fatal gastrointestinal (gi) disease of poultry and other avian species, which produces marked destruction of intestinal lining in digestive tract caused by c. perfringens . pathogenicity and les...

In prokaryotes, cognate toxin-antitoxin pairs have long been known, but no three-dimensional structure has been available for any given complex from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here we report the crystal structure and activity of a member of the VapBC family of complexes from M. tuberculosis. The toxin VapC-5 is a compact, 150 residues, two domain alpha/beta protein. Bent around the toxin is th...

We investigated regulation of the cardiac L-type calcium channel by intracellular ATP and by alpha 1-adrenergic agonism using single adult guinea pig ventricular cells and the whole-cell patch clamp method. Inclusion of 5 mM ATP in the patch clamp pipette prevented calcium current rundown but did not increase the maximal magnitude of the slow inward calcium current (ICa). During beta 1-adrenerg...

Clostridium perfringens type A toxin produced in Jayko & Lichstein medium was subjected to various concentration and purification procedures. The results obtained with 3 different ultrafiltration membranes followed by gel filtration showed that by using Millipore PSED OHV10 and Amicon XM-100 filter membranes in combination, a three-hundred-and-fivefold purification could be achieved as against ...

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to detect Clostridium perfringens alpha toxin gene (cpa) was used to identify eighty-nine C. perfringens strains obtained from bovine clinical material. The strains were biochemically characterized as C. perfringens. The isolated strains were cultured on plates containing brain heart infusion agar with 5% sheep blood under anaerobic conditions. DNA extrac...

The channel forming alpha-toxin of Staphylococcus aureus (about 50 micrograms/ml) markedly reduces the Ca2+ requirement for dopamine release by the rat pheochromocytoma cell line (PC 12). Maximal secretion by intact cells requires approximately 1 mM Ca2+, whereas release by alpha-toxin-permeabilized cells can already be triggered with microM concentrations of Ca2+. The latter process reaches a ...

Objectives MEDI4893 is a novel, long-acting human monoclonal antibody targeting Staphylococcus aureus (SA) alpha toxin (AT). This report presents the results of the exploratory analyses from a randomised phase 1 dose-escalation study in healthy human subjects receiving single intravenous MEDI4893 doses or placebo. Methods Anti-AT antibodies and AT expression were measured as described previou...

clostridium perfringens is a gram-positive, obligate anaerobic bacterium, which is widely distributed in the environment. c. perfringens is subdivided to 5 groups (types a to e), based on its four major toxin (alpha, beta, epsilon and iota). c. perfringens type b beta toxin causes inflammation and bloody necrotic enteritis. type b related enterotoxaemia is a major problem of veterinary sciences...