Deadliest Toxin?

[David Reeves]

Depree, Jonathan A <depreej at lincoln.ac.nz> wrote in article
<depreej.163.000998B5 at lincoln.ac.nz>...

> One molecule of ricin will kill one cell. I suspect that one molecule of 
> botulinus toxin will kill one nerve cell. The bacterial toxins are pretty

> deadly, I seem to recall that three reasonably active cells of C tetani
will 
> produce enough toxin to kill an average human in good health.
> 
> Actually human toxicity is a bit problematic. Feeding toxin to students
until 
> half of them die is frowned upon in most societies. What we usually do is
find 
> the dose for rats (or similar animals). There is some evidence that some 
> toxins (like tetrodotoxin from puffer fish) are much more toxic whereas
others 
> (like dioxin) are much less toxic to humans. It'll do until we find
something 
> better.
> 


Apparently Botulinum is toxic with "a few" molecules per nerve terminal;
interestingly in humans it is sometimes used to treat eyelid spasms  :)


David


-- 
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			David C Reeves  LTCL
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