Publications related to Toxin | EPFL Graph Search

Dissecting the role of the asparagine synthesis in acute liver injury

Amino acids are some of the main building stones of life used in a variety of biological processes, such as protein synthesis, energy metabolism or even as precursors for hormone synthesis. How-ever, some of them also participate and coordinate certain cel ...

EPFL2022

Phototransformation kinetics of cyanobacterial toxins and secondary metabolites in surface waters

Sandro Marcotullio

Background Cyanobacteria and their toxins occur in high concentrations during the so-called bloom events in surface waters. To be able to assess the risks associated with cyanobacterial blooms, we need to understand the persistence and fate processes of th ...

2021

Harnessing the Membrane Translocation Properties of AB Toxins for Therapeutic Applications

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Oksana Andrei Sergeeva

Over the last few decades, proteins and peptides have become increasingly more common as FDA-approved drugs, despite their inefficient delivery due to their inability to cross the plasma membrane. In this context, bacterial two-component systems, termed AB ...

2021

Mechanisms protecting host cells against bacterial pore-forming toxins

Francisco De Magalhães Sarmento R De Mesquita

Pore-forming toxins (PFTs) are key virulence determinants produced and secreted by a variety of human bacterial pathogens. They disrupt the plasma membrane (PM) by generating stable protein pores, which allow uncontrolled exchanges between the extracellula ...

SPRINGER BASEL AG2019

Functional analysis of RIP toxins from the Drosophila endosymbiont Spiroplasma poulsonii

Bruno Lemaitre, Florent François Masson, Juan Camilo Paredes Escobar, Mario Gonzalo Garcia Arraez

BackgroundInsects frequently live in close relationship with symbiotic bacteria that carry out beneficial functions for their host, like protection against parasites and viruses. However, in some cases, the mutualistic nature of such associations is put in ...

2019

Structural and functional analysis of host attachment proteins from contractile injection systems

Michel Plattner

Bacteriophages of the myoviridae family, R-type pyocin, Photorhabus virulence cassette (PVC), Serratia antifeeding prophage (Afp) and type 6 secretion system (T6SS) form a class of contractile injection systems that share common structural and functional c ...

EPFL2018

Mechanism of Shiga Toxin Clustering on Membranes

Julian Charles Shillcock

The bacterial Shiga toxin interacts with its cellular receptor, the glycosphingolipid globotriaosylceramide (Gb3 or CD77), as a first step to entering target cells. Previous studies have shown that toxin molecules cluster on the plasma membrane, despite th ...

2017

Folding and Endocytosis of Anthrax Toxin Receptors

Bacillus anthracis is the causative agent of the infectious disease anthrax. The disease is caused after taking up the spores by either inhalation, ingestion or through skin lesion. They then germinate inside the body and start secreting the tripartite ant ...

EPFL2016

Pore-forming toxins: ancient, but never really out of fashion

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Matteo Dal Peraro

Pore-forming toxins (PFTs) are virulence factors produced by many pathogenic bacteria and have long fascinated structural biologists, microbiologists and immunologists. Interestingly, pore-forming proteins with remarkably similar structures to PFTs are fou ...

Nature Publishing Group2016

Screening of structurally diverse bicyclic peptide libraries by phage display

Davide Bertoldo

Bicyclic peptides are an attractive molecule format for the development of therapeutics and research tools. Our laboratory is specialized on the development of bicyclic peptide ligands by phage display. In brief, libraries of randompeptides each containing ...

EPFL2016

Membrane invagination induced by Shiga toxin B-subunit: from molecular structure to tube formation

Julian Charles Shillcock

The bacterial Shiga toxin is composed of an enzymatically active A-subunit, and a receptor-binding homopentameric B-subunit (STxB) that mediates intracellular toxin trafficking. Upon STxB-mediated binding to the glycolipid globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) at th ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2016

Development and application of the adverse outcome pathway framework for understanding and predicting chronic toxicity: I. Challenges and research needs in ecotoxicology

Kristin Schirmer

To elucidate the effects of chemicals on populations of different species in the environment, efficient testing and modeling approaches are needed that consider multiple stressors and allow reliable extrapolation of responses across species. An adverse out ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2015

Mixtures of Chemical Pollutants at European Legislation Safety Concentrations: How Safe Are They?

Kristin Schirmer

The risk posed by complex chemical mixtures in the environment to wildlife and humans is increasingly debated, but has been rarely tested under environmentally relevant scenarios. To address this issue, two mixtures of 14 or 19 substances of concern (pesti ...

Oxford University Press2014

Crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of monalysin, a novel beta-pore-forming toxin from the entomopathogen Pseudomonas entomophila

Bruno Lemaitre, Onya Opota

Monalysin was recently described as a novel pore-forming toxin (PFT) secreted by the Drosophila pathogen Pseudomonas entomophila. Recombinant monalysin is multimeric in solution, whereas PFTs are supposed to be monomeric until target membrane association. ...

International Union of Crystallography2013

Caspase-2 is an initiator caspase responsible for pore-forming toxin-mediated apoptosis

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg

Bacterial pathogens modulate host cell apoptosis to establish a successful infection. Pore-forming toxins (PFTs) secreted by pathogenic bacteria are major virulence factors and have been shown to induce various forms of cell death in infected cells. Here w ...

Nature Publishing Group2012

Genetic evidence for a protective role of the peritrophic matrix against intestinal bacterial infection in Drosophila melanogaster

Bruno Lemaitre, Onya Opota, Olivier Binggeli, Takayuki Kuraishi

The peritrophic matrix (PM) forms a layer composed of chitin and glycoproteins that lines the insect intestinal lumen. This physical barrier plays a role analogous to that of mucous secretions of the vertebrate digestive tract and is thought to protect the ...

National Academy of Sciences2011

Dual Chaperone Role of the C-Terminal Propeptide in Folding and Oligomerization of the Pore-Forming Toxin Aerolysin

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Matteo Dal Peraro, Mircea Ioan Iacovache, Sylvia Ho, Matteo Thomas Degiacomi

Throughout evolution, one of the most ancient forms of aggression between cells or organisms has been the production of proteins or peptides affecting the permeability of the target cell membrane. This class of virulence factors includes the largest family ...

2011

Assembly Mechanisms and Cellular Effects of Bacterial Pore-Forming Toxins

Mirko Bischofberger

The correct assembly of macromolecular protein complexes such as ribosomes or multisubunit membrane channels is essential for their function. Alterations in the process can lead to disease either by loss of function or by acquisition of toxic function. How ...

EPFL2011

Reconstructed ancestral sequences improve pathogen identification using resequencing DNA microarrays

Stewart Cole

We describe the benefit of using reconstructed ancestral sequences (RAS) on resequencing microarrays for rapid pathogen identification, with Enterobacteriaceae rpoB sequences as a model. Our results demonstrate a sharp improvement of call rate and accuracy ...

Public Library of Science2010

Preliminary crystallographic analysis of two oligomerization-deficient mutants of the aerolysin toxin, H132D and H132N, in their proteolyzed forms

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg

Aerolysin is a major virulence factor produced by the Gram-negative bacterium Aeromonas hydrophila and is a member of the beta-pore-forming toxin family. Two oligomerization-deficient aerolysin mutants, H132D and H132N, have been overproduced, proteolyzed ...

2010