As biological control agents take an expanding share of the pesticides market and the production of insect-resistant crops increases, it is essential to understand the structure and function of the active agents, the ...

Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are important genetic modules composed by two elements: a toxin, that is always a protein, and an antitoxin, that can be a RNA or a protein and neutralizes the toxic effect of toxin. These ...

The present study shows how nature combined a small number of chemical building blocks to synthesize the acylpolyamine toxins in the venoms of Nephilinae orb-web spiders. Considering these structures in four parts, it was ...

We investigated an Enterobacter cloacae strain exhibiting high hemolytic and leukotoxic activity. Monomeric and polymeric forms of the toxin showed similar effects on blood cells, although the polymer was more active than ...

Exfoliative toxins are serine proteases secreted by Staphylococcus aureus that are associated with toxin-mediated staphylococcal syndromes. To date, four different serotypes of exfoliative toxins have been identified and ...

Shiga toxins are the main virulence factors of a group of Escherichia coli strains [Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC)] that cause severe human diseases, such as haemorrhagic colitis and haemolytic–uraemic syndrome. The ...