Application

Diphtheria toxin may be used as a toxin element in the construction of immunotoxin for cell specific cytotoxicity. The translocation domain of bacterial toxins with natural endosome escape mechanism has been used in the development of efficient nonviral vectors for applications in gene therapy.

Diphtheria Toxin from Corynebacterium diphtheriae has been:used for microglia depletion to study post-traumatic stress disorder in miceintraperitoneally injectedin transgenic miceto select the hybrids after fusion of transplanted hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) during ablationused to study its effect on eosinophil lineage-committed progenitors in an eosinophil-deficient strain of mice (iPHIL)

Biochem/physiol Actions

Diphtheria toxin is a bacterial toxin produced from Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It contains three domains that have intracellular actions. The domains are involved in the intoxication of the cell, cell-surface binding andinternalizationinto endosomes, translocating into the cytosol across the endosome membrane and inhibiting cellularprotein synthesis.Diphtheria toxin is useful in constructing biotechnological tools and therapeutics. It inhibits protein synthesis by catalyzing adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-ribosylation of the target protein in eukaryotes.

Physical form

Lyophilized powder containing Tris and EDTA.

Reconstitution

Each vial, when reconstituted to 0.5 mL with sterile distilled water, contains ~1 mg of diphtheria toxin in 0.01 M Tris and 0.001 M Na₂EDTA, pH 7.5.