Toxins, Volume 6, Issue 4

Neuronal and vascular brain components are interrelated morphologically, physiologically and developmentally. Due to this close interrelationship, it is often difficult to understand the cause and effect relationship between neuronal vs. vascular dys...

The definition of a synthetic index for classifying the quality of water bodies is a key aspect in integrated planning and management of water resource systems. In previous works [1,2], a water system optimization modeling approach that requires a si...

Clostridium difficile is a Gram-positive bacterium and is the most commonly diagnosed cause of hospital-associated and antimicrobial-associated diarrhea. Despite the emergence of epidemic C. difficile strains having led to an increase in the incidenc...

West Nile virus (WNV) causes potentially fatal neuroinvasive disease and persists at endemic levels in many parts of the world. Despite advances in our understanding of WNV pathogenesis, there remains a significant need for a human vaccine. The domai...

Martentoxin (MarTX), a 37-residue peptide purified from the venom of East-Asian scorpion (Buthus martensi Karsch), was capable of blocking large-conductance Ca²⁺-activated K⁺ (BK) channels. Here, we report an effective expression and purification ap...

Deaths by venomous animals are medical emergencies that can lead to death and thus constitute sanitary problems in some regions of the world. In the South of America, the accidents by these animals are a common sanitary problem especially in warm, tr...

Considering the urgent demand for rapid and accurate determination of bacterial toxins and the recent promising developments in nanotechnology and microfluidics, this review summarizes new achievements of the past five years. Firstly, bacterial toxin...

We have previously shown that ribosomal protein L3 is required for pokeweed antiviral protein (PAP), a type I ribosome inactivating protein, to bind to ribosomes and depurinate the α-sarcin/ricin loop (SRL) in yeast. Co-expression of the N-terminal 9...

I have read with interest James C. Hurley’s very good review [1].

I appreciate the thoughtful comments from Dr. Brock-Utne [1] on my recent review of the disconnect between animal studies and clinical experience with anti-endotoxemia therapies [2].

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin produced by different Aspergillus and Penicillium species. Since its mechanism of action is not fully understood yet, it is important to gain further insight into different interactions of OTA at the molecular level....

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is an important disease of wheat worldwide caused mainly by Fusarium graminearum (syn. Gibberella zeae). This fungus can be highly aggressive and can produce several mycotoxins such as deoxynivalenol (DON), a well known har...

We developed a microarray based on 2895 unique transcripts assembled from 15,000 cDNA sequences from the European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) larval gut. This microarray was used to monitor gene expression in early third-instar larvae of Bacillu...

The monotremes (platypuses and echidnas) represent one of only four extant venomous mammalian lineages. Until recently, monotreme venom was poorly understood. However, the availability of the platypus genome and increasingly sophisticated genomic too...

Endotoxemia plays a major causative role in the myocardial injury and dysfunction associated with sepsis. Extracellular hemoglobin (Hb) has been shown to enhance the pathophysiology of endotoxemia. In the present study, we examined the myocardial pat...

Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti) is the first Bacillus thuringiensis to be found and used as an effective biological control agent against larvae of many mosquito and black fly species around the world. Its larvicidal activity resides...

Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), of various serogroups harboring the intimin gene, form a serious threat to human health. They are asymptomatically carried by cattle. In this study, a quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) method was developed as a m...

Fuel ethanol co-products known as distillers’ dried grains with solubles (DDGS) are a significant source of energy, protein, and phosphorous in animal feed. Fuel ethanol production may concentrate mycotoxins present in corn into DDGS. One hundred and...

Acetogenins are secondary metabolites exclusively produced by Annonaceae, which have antitumor, cytotoxic, and pesticide activities. In this study, we evaluated the larvicidal and cytotoxic effect of squamocin from Annona squamosa on Aedes aegypti (D...

Ochratoxin A (OTA) and Zearalenone (ZEA) are widespread mycotoxins that contaminate foodstuffs simultaneously, but sufficient data regarding their mixed toxicities are lacking. This study aims to analyze the style of combined effects of OTA and ZEA o...

Aflatoxin production inhibitors, which do not inhibit the growth of aflatoxigenic fungi, may be used to control aflatoxin without incurring a rapid spread of resistant strains. A respiration inhibitor that inhibits aflatoxin production was identified...