Toxin-antitoxin systems (TAs) are ubiquitous among bacteria and play a crucial role in the dissemination and evolution of antibiotic resistance, such as maintaining multi-resistant plasmids and inducing persistence formation. Generally, activities of the toxins are neutralised by their conjugate antitoxins. In contrast, antitoxins are more liable to degrade under specific conditions such as str...

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are small genetic modules usually composed of a toxin and an antitoxin counteracting the activity of the toxic protein. These systems are widely spread in bacterial and archaeal genomes. TA systems have been assigned many functions, ranging from persistence to DNA stabilization or protection against mobile genetic elements. They are classified in five types, dependi...

A significant number of bacteria, including the emerging multidrug-resistant “superbugs,” such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Clostridium difficile, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli, secrete highly potent exotoxins with no antitoxins currently available to disable them. Several bacterial toxins, such as the botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) of Clostridium botulinum, can be aerosolized and used...

With the methods which have been described we have separated an exotoxin and an endotoxin from cultures of the Shiga dysenteric bacillus. The study of the nature and effect of the poison of this microorganism is thus simplified. The two toxins are physically and biologically distinct. The exotoxin is relatively heat-labile, arises in the early period of growth, and yields an antiexotoxic immune...

Almost all bacteria and many archaea contain genes whose expression inhibits cell growth and may lead to cell death when overproduced, reminiscent of apoptotic genes in higher systems. The cellular targets of these toxins are quite diverse and include DNA replication, mRNA stability, protein synthesis, cell-wall biosynthesis, and ATP synthesis. These toxins are co-expressed and neutralized with...

11.25 Emmanuelle Charpentier The transformative genome engineering technology CRISPR-Cas9: lessons learned from bacteria 16.05 Benoit Chassaing Microbiota-GeneticEnvironment interplay in intestinal inflammation 11.25 Kenn Gerdes Remarkable functional convergence: Type I and Type II toxin-antitoxins induce persistence by a ‘magic spot’ dependent mechanism 16.05 Sharon Peacock Translating microbi...