ArticleCommunications biology2022
Structures of distant diphtheria toxin homologs reveal functional determinants of an evolutionarily conserved toxin scaffold.
Article in Communications biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Streptomyces produce a diphtheria toxin-like exotoxin that targets insects.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Quinolone Resistance and Zoonotic Potential ofAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Discovery of mono-ADP ribosylating toxins with high structural homology to Pseudomonas exotoxin A.Communications biology · 2025Article
- MappingmBio · 2025Article
- Designing a Novel di-epitope Diphtheria Vaccine: A Rational Structural Immunoinformatics Approach.Current computer-aided drug design · 2025Article
- An enhanced intracellular delivery platform based on a distant diphtheria toxin homolog that evades pre-existing antitoxin antibodies.EMBO molecular medicine · 2024Article
- Neuropilin-1 Binding Peptide as Fusion to Diphtheria Toxin Induces Apoptosis in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Cell Line.Current pharmaceutical design · 2024Article
- Unconventional structure and mechanisms for membrane interaction and translocation of the NF-κB-targeting toxin AIP56.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Cancer Drug Delivery Systems Using Bacterial Toxin Translocation Mechanisms.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Strategies to mitigate the on- and off-target toxicities of recombinant immunotoxins: an antibody engineering perspective.Antibody therapeutics · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Diphtheria toxin (DT) is the archetype for bacterial exotoxins implicated in human diseases and has played a central role in defining the field of toxinology since its discovery in 1888. Despite being one of the most extensively characterized bacterial toxins, the origins and evolutionary adaptation of DT to human hosts remain unknown. Here, we determined the first high-resolution structures of DT homologs outside of the Corynebacterium genus. DT homologs from Streptomyces albireticuli (17% identity to DT) and Seinonella peptonophila (20% identity to DT), despite showing no toxicity toward human cells, display significant structural similarities to DT sharing both the overall Y-shaped architecture of DT as well as the individual folds of each domain. Through a systematic investigation of individual domains, we show that the functional determinants of host range extend beyond an inability to bind cellular receptors; major differences in pH-induced pore-formation and cytosolic release further dictate the delivery of toxic catalytic moieties into cells, thus providing multiple mechanisms for a conserved structural fold to adapt to different hosts. Our work provides structural insights into the expanding DT family of toxins, and highlights key transitions required for host adaptation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.