IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v467y2010i7316d10.1038_nature09397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of toxin A and toxin B in Clostridium difficile infection

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah A. Kuehne

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

  • Stephen T. Cartman

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

  • John T. Heap

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

  • Michelle L. Kelly

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

  • Alan Cockayne

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

  • Nigel P. Minton

    (Clostridia Research Group, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, School of Molecular Medical Sciences, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University of Nottingham)

Abstract

Clostridium difficile toxins revisited Clostridium difficile, the most common cause of infectious diarrhoea in hospitals in Europe and North America, produces two toxins. Their relative importance has been widely debated, and although animal studies had indicated that purified toxin A alone can induce most of the pathology observed in C. difficile infections, a recent Nature paper ( http://go.nature.com/oh6un5 ) suggested that the other toxin, toxin B, was the main cause of disease symptoms. Now a new study, involving C. difficile strains producing either toxin A or toxin B alone and — for the first time — a double-mutant strain producing neither, demonstrates that both toxins are important for disease, and need to be considered for diagnosis and treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah A. Kuehne & Stephen T. Cartman & John T. Heap & Michelle L. Kelly & Alan Cockayne & Nigel P. Minton, 2010. "The role of toxin A and toxin B in Clostridium difficile infection," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7316), pages 711-713, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:467:y:2010:i:7316:d:10.1038_nature09397
    DOI: 10.1038/nature09397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09397
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature09397?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lola Rueda Ruzafa & José Luis Cedillo & Arik J. Hone, 2021. "Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Involvement in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Interactions with Gut Microbiota," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-19, January.
    2. Ashleigh S. Paparella & Briana L. Aboulache & Rajesh K. Harijan & Kathryn S. Potts & Peter C. Tyler & Vern L. Schramm, 2021. "Inhibition of Clostridium difficile TcdA and TcdB toxins with transition state analogues," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Songhai Tian & Xiaozhe Xiong & Ji Zeng & Siyu Wang & Benjamin Jean-Marie Tremblay & Peng Chen & Baohua Chen & Min Liu & Pengsheng Chen & Kuanwei Sheng & Daniel Zeve & Wanshu Qi & David T. Breault & Cé, 2022. "Identification of TFPI as a receptor reveals recombination-driven receptor switching in Clostridioides difficile toxin B variants," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:467:y:2010:i:7316:d:10.1038_nature09397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.