Bacteria and plants produce powerful toxins that can cause a variety of diseases, some of which are lethal for many animal species. The mechanisms of action are common to many of these toxins and represent general pathways for the interaction of a number of biomolecules with target cells, such as binding to specific surface receptors, internalization and translocation across the cell membrane, and interaction with intracellular components. Because of their potency in killing eukaryotic cells, they have been used in the development of novel agents for targeted immunotherapy, and have been termed 'chimeric toxins'.The elucidation of the mechanism of action of protein toxins remains a complex problem, but understanding these mechanisms will open new avenues for the design of novel therapies for the treatment of toxin-related diseases. In Chimeric Toxins: Mechanisms of Action and Therapeutic Applications, the authors review the structure, function and mechanisms of toxic action and investigate their therapeutic applications in medicine, including approaches used to design, express and purify these molecules as well as discussing their characteristics and in vivo efficacy.
Author(s): Haya Lorberboum-Galski, Philip Lazarovici
Series: Cellular & Molecular Mechanisms of Toxic Action
Edition: 1
Publisher: CRC Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 288
Front cover......Page 1
Half.title......Page 2
Series.info......Page 3
Inside.cover......Page 4
Copyright.page......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
List of figures......Page 8
List of tables......Page 10
List of contributors......Page 12
Preface to the series......Page 14
Preface......Page 16
1 Bacterial and plant toxins – general mode of action......Page 18
2 Diphtheria toxin – structure, function, and its clinical applications......Page 31
3 Ricin A: structure, function and its clinical applications......Page 54
4 Pathways of delivering toxins into the cytosol of target cells......Page 103
5 Engineering immunotoxins for improving their therapeutic activity......Page 116
6 Ligand–receptor interactions studied with chimeric proteins......Page 152
7 Chimeric proteins......Page 165
8 Chimeric neurotoxins – a molecular neurosurgery approach......Page 185
9 Targeted immunotherapy of autoimmune diseases by chimeric toxins......Page 196
10 Immunotoxins for targeted cancer therapy......Page 220
11 Molecular targeting of brain tumors with cytotoxins......Page 239
12 Toxin in the development of vaccines......Page 264
Index......Page 278
