(Fwd) Botulinum & tetanus toxins

[Michael Duggan]

 Gagan Gupta <gagan at yorku.ca> wrote:

>Dear readers,
>	Has anyone come across any work done with the anti-exocytotic
>toxins (botulinum and tetanus) on non neuronal-cells, or are these
>completely neuron-specific?


Actually quite a lot has been done using these toxins as probes for 
several sorts of membrane trafficking/secretion processes.

I suggest that you do a literature search (e.g. Medline) for the past 
3 years.

One example does spring to mind ;-)

Boyd, Duggan, Shone and Foster (1995) J. Biol. Chem. 270, 
18216-18218. The effect of botulinum neurotoxins on the release of 
insulin from the insulinoma cell lines HIT-15 and RINm5F.



Michael J. Duggan,
Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research,
Porton Down,
Salisbury,
Wiltshire,
SP4 0JG,
UK

michael.duggan at camr.org.uk

Tel 01980 612733
Fax 01981 612100