Ricin, cholera toxin and shiga toxin, produced by deadly strains of E. coli, are the stuff of every poisoner’s handbook – because there is no antidote. Now Jose Saenz and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, may have found one.
These toxins travel backwards through a cell’s protein-making pathway, passing through the Golgi network and endoplasmic reticulum before interrupting protein synthesis. Saenz’s team screened 14,400 small molecules for compounds that could halt this journey without disrupting normal cell function. They found two such molecules which, if safe, could lead to treatments for these poisons (Infection…
