Selected Papers from the 26th Meeting of the French Society for Toxinology - Bioengineering of Toxins
Résumé
Toxins are very potent molecules responsible for moderate to highly severe diseases in man and animals. They are produced by a wide variety of organisms ranging from bacteria, to fungus, animals, and plants. However, toxins are also potent therapeutic drugs such as botulinum neurotoxins that have a large number of medical applications or peptide toxins, for example, conotoxins, used in the treatment of pain. In addition, toxins are very useful tools in cell biology that have revealed key physiological processes such as exocytosis, cytoskeleton organization, and the investigation of ionic channels. Modifications of toxins by bioengineering represent a current and important issue in the development of novel applications of toxins, including medical applications and tools for basic science, as well as the development of novel and efficient countermeasures (neutralizing antibodies and specific inhibitors). Recent progress shows that toxins can be modified for specific applications by increasing their activity or their cell specificity (for example, the development of toxins for the treatment of pain or the development of novel technological tools) or, in contrast, by decreasing their activity and use as vaccine or development of neutralizing antibodies and inhibitors.