Diphtheria Toxin Ablation
Diphtheria Toxin Ablation - Related Videos
07:13
Two Techniques to Create Hypoparathyroid Mice: Parathyroidectomy Using GFP Glands and Diphtheria-Toxin-Mediated Parathyroid Ablation
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Cited by 4 •
2017
Mice with acquired hypoparathyroidism would be useful for studying novel drug therapies for hypoparathyroidism. Two procedures to create such mice are demonstrated. The GFP-PTX mouse is generated by surgical parathyroidectomy guided by green fluorescing parathyroid glands. A second, non-surgical approach is based on parathyroid-specific expression of the diphtheria toxin receptor.
01:28
Diphtheria
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2026
Diphtheria is an acute, toxin-mediated infectious disease that primarily affects the upper respiratory tract. It is caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a Gram-positive, pleomorphic rod that lacks spore-forming capability and exhibits a characteristic club-shaped morphology under microscopic examination. While C. diphtheriae can asymptomatically colonize mucosal surfaces, clinical disease manifests only when the bacterial strain is lysogenized by a specific β-corynephage. This phage...
11:21
Robotic Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation
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Cited by 12 •
2015
Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) with an ablation catheter is a curative treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF). Robotic catheter systems aim to improve catheter steerability. Here, a procedure with a new robotic catheter system is presented. The goal of the procedure is electrical block between pulmonary vein and left atrium.
01:12
Bacterial Toxins
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2026
Bacterial toxins are sophisticated virulence factors that enable pathogenic bacteria to interact with, invade, and damage host tissues. These toxins fall broadly into two types: protein exotoxins, which are secreted into the environment and target specific host receptors, and lipopolysaccharide endotoxins, which are structural components of the bacterial outer membrane released primarily during bacterial lysis or membrane shedding. Exotoxins generally act more selectively, binding to cell...
01:36
Types of Toxins
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2023
Humans continually engage with an environment rich in potentially harmful chemicals. These are introduced to our bodies through inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact. These chemicals exist in various forms, such as air and environmental pollutants, agricultural chemicals, organic solvents, and heavy metals. Air pollutants, primarily gases, pose significant threats to respiratory health, leading to conditions like hypoxia, lung cancer, and in extreme cases, death. Environmental pollutants like...
FAQs
Selectivity begins with receptor expression: engineered target cells are made susceptible to the toxin, while sensitivity depends on where receptor-mediated entry occurs. This design links cell identity to toxin exposure, allowing investigators to remove a defined population rather than treating an entire tissue uniformly. The approach therefore depends on assigning susceptibility to the intended cells.
After uptake, the toxin’s catalytic fragment ADP-ribosylates elongation factor 2, a component required for protein synthesis. Blocking this process deprives the cell of ongoing protein production and leads to cell death. This molecular sequence explains why receptor-mediated uptake is central: susceptibility alone is insufficient unless the toxin reaches the engineered target cell.
The timing of cell removal helps distinguish a cell’s causal contribution from changes that merely accompany a biological process. By eliminating the defined population at selected times, researchers can examine effects on tissue injury, regeneration, inflammation, or disease progression. This temporal control provides stronger functional evidence than observing correlations without experimentally removing the cells.
Researchers begin with an engineered model in which the population of interest expresses a diphtheria toxin receptor. They then administer the toxin and analyze consequences after ablation at a defined time point. Outcomes may include changes in cell function, tissue injury, regeneration, inflammation, or disease progression, depending on the biological question being tested.
The method can test whether a selected cell population contributes directly to tissue injury, regeneration, inflammation, or disease progression. Removing the cells creates an experimental contrast between their presence and absence, helping investigators evaluate function rather than relying only on association. This makes the strategy useful for linking specific populations to broader tissue-level outcomes in medicine and biology.
Observational studies can show that a cell population changes alongside injury, regeneration, inflammation, or disease, but they may not establish whether that population causes the outcome. Controlled ablation provides a direct perturbation by removing the defined cells at a chosen time. Comparing subsequent outcomes can therefore clarify causal relationships that are difficult to resolve from observation alone.