Toxic and Allergenic Protein

Along with the carrier bacteria, microbial toxins capable of disrupting or hyperstimulating numerous critical activities and pathways of eukaryotic cells have emerged. These toxins must benefit the bacterium in some way, either during the host-parasite relationship or in some environmental niche encountered by the bacterium. Certain bacterial toxins act on the target cell surface, causing irreversible damage to the cell membrane or disrupting normal cellular signal transduction. Other poisons demonstrate enzymatic action after entering the cytoplasm of the susceptible cell via endocytosis. Other bacterial toxins work by inhibiting or activating a normal host cell function.
Although harmful to the susceptible host during infection, certain bacterial toxins have been used as probes of eukaryotic cellular pathways and for medical uses. Thus, research on a microbial toxin produced by an established, developing, or reemerging pathogen is likely to offer unique knowledge about the toxin’s role in disease and the disrupted host cell features. Table 1 lists the common bacterial toxin proteins.