Making the best of a bad toxin.
Making the best of a bad toxin
Few compounds bind to nerve endings as well as tetanus toxin tetanus toxin
n.
The neurotropic exotoxin of Clostridium tetani that causes tetanus. . Put the poisonous protein almost anywhere in the body and it will find a peripheral nerve ending, then travel inside nerve cells to the central nervous system, where it eventually can lead to death. Paul S. Fishman and his colleagues at the University of Maryland University of Maryland can refer to: - University of Maryland, College Park, a research-extensive and flagship university; when the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to this school
School of Medicine in Baltimore took a nontoxic fragment of the tetanus toxin, bound it to an immune-system protein, and traced the hybrid compound as it moved from peripheral nerve endings into the central nervous system and brain. Fishman and others say the technique may be an excellent way of getting immune proteins into the spinal cord spinal cord, the part of the nervous system occupying the hollow interior (vertebral canal) of the series of vertebrae that form the spinal column, technically known as the vertebral column. and brain -- usually isolated from disease-fighting antibodies by the "blood-brain barrier blood-brain barrier
n. Abbr. BBB
A physiological mechanism that alters the permeability of brain capillaries so that some substances, such as certain drugs, are prevented from entering brain tissue, while other substances are allowed to ."
COPYRIGHT 1988 Science Service, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1988, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
|
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion