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Bacterial Toxins & Damage to Neurons
Which bacterial toxins have negative impacts on the human body? This paper reviews those toxins and their effects on human functions.
Clinical Diseases
Professor F.H. Kayser explains that "Exotoxins" are pathogenic bacteria that are capable of producing a "variety of toxins that are either the only pathogenic factor" in the onset of diseases like diphtheria, tetanus and cholera, or if they aren't the only factor they are at lease a "major factor" in a person getting these three diseases (Kayser, 2011). Not all of these toxins attack the cells; cytotoxins, for example, can produce toxic effects in a number of different host cells, Kayser explains on page 15. But without fail, neurotoxins impact the neurons of the host, according to the author.
Kayser explains that AB toxins bind to "specific surface receptors on target host cells," and he lists the various AB toxins that do attack cells and neurons in those cells. Diphtheria toxin is an AB toxin, and it can lead to "cell death" through protein synthesis (Kayser, 16). The clinical reality associated with the diphtheria toxin is that it kills mucosal cells, which causes severe damage to the muscles of the heart, to kidneys, to adrenal glands, the liver and to "motor nerves of...
The ultimate result is a condition the author describes as "massive watery diarrhea" and a substantial loss of water and electrolytes (16).
The tetanus toxin directly attacks the neurons (synapses), preventing them from producing the "synapses of the interior horn" which in normal situations transmits inhibiting impulses to the motor nerve terminal" (Kayser, 16).
Meanwhile in the book Neurobiology of Brain Disorders: Biological Basis of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders, the authors explain that the release of toxins can have a negative impact on the human nervous system. In particular the authors mention the "Clostridium botulinus and tetani toxins, which are metalloproteases that inhibit synaptic vesicle release" (Zigmond, et al., 2014). Those difficult words basically mean that the human body's neurons are disrupted by the tetanus toxin (as mentioned in the previous page) and by the botulinum (associated with the term botulism).
Once the botulinum toxin enters the…
Works Cited
Kayser, F.H., and Bienz, K.A. (2011). Medical Microbiology. New York: Thieme Medical
Publishers.
National Health Service. (2014) Tetanus & Botulism Treatments. Retrieved November 25,
2014, from http://www.nhs.uk.
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