Pertussis toxin
Pertussis toxin (PT) is a protein-based AB5-type exotoxin produced by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, which causes whooping cough. PT is involved in the colonization of the respiratory tract and the establishment of infection. Research suggests PT may have a therapeutic role in treating a number of common human ailments, including hypertension, viral inhibition, and autoimmune inhibition.
PT clearly plays a central role in the pathogenesis of pertussis although this was discovered only in the early 1980s. The appearance of pertussis is quite recent, compared with other epidemic infectious diseases. The earliest mention of pertussis, or whooping cough, is of an outbreak in Paris in 1414. This was published in Moulton’s The Mirror of Health, in 1640. Another epidemic of pertussis took place in Paris in 1578 and was described by a contemporary observer, Guillaume de Baillou. Pertussis was well known throughout Europe by the middle of the 18th century. Jules Bordet and Octave Gengou described in 1900 the finding of a new “ovoid bacillus” in the sputum of a 6-month-old infant with whooping cough. They were also the first to cultivate Bordetella pertussis at the Pasteur Institute in Brussels in 1906.
One difference between the different species of Bordetella is that B. pertussis produces PT and the other species do not. Bordetella parapertussis shows the most similarity to B. pertussis and was therefore used for research determining the role of PT in causing the typical symptoms of whooping cough. Rat studies showed the development of paroxysmal coughing, a characteristic for whooping cough, occurred in rats infected with B. pertussis. Rats infected with B. parapertussis or a PT-deficient mutant of B. pertussis did not show this symptom; neither of these two strains produced PT.
A large group of bacterial exotoxins are referred to as "A/B toxins", in essence because they are formed from two subunits. The "A" subunit possesses enzyme activity, and is transferred to the host cell following a conformational change in the membrane-bound transport "B" subunit. Pertussis toxin is an exotoxin with six subunits (named S1 through S5—each complex contains two copies of S4). The subunits are arranged in A-B structure: the A component is enzymatically active and is formed from the S1 subunit, while the B component is the receptor-binding portion and is made up of subunits S2–S5. The subunits are encoded by ptx genes encoded on a large PT operon that also includes additional genes that encode Ptl proteins. Together, these proteins form the PT secretion complex.
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