Resolving the Molecular Steps in Clostridial Neurotoxin Light Chain Translocation

Abstract

Clostridial neurotoxin pathologyClostridium tetani and C. botulinum are ubiquitous soil organisms that produce CNTs. The CNTs include a highly conserved tetanus toxin (TT) and a multitude of serologically distinct botulinum neurotoxins (BT/A-G), which cause paralytic diseases, tetanus (spastic paralysis) and botulism (flaccid paralysis), respectively (Figure 1). Currently, most children receive vaccination to prevent tetanus, but there is no approved vaccine to prevent human botulism. Recently, bioinformatics data mining revealed unexpected BT homologues, including BT/X (C.