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Keyword: anthraxtoxin

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  • Turning anthrax toxin into a cancer killer

    12/31/2007 7:05:31 PM PST · by neverdem · 5 replies · 168+ views
    firstscience.com ^ | 28 Dec 2007 | NA
    Story ideas from the Journal of Biological Chemistry By American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Most people wouldn’t consider anthrax toxin to be beneficial, but this bacterial poison may someday be an effective cancer therapy. Anthrax toxin has actually been shown to be fairly selective in targeting melanoma cells, although the risk of non-cancer toxicity prevents any clinical use. To develop a better and safer treatment, Stephen Leppla and colleagues created a mutated antrax toxin that could only be turned on by matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), proteins that are overproduced only in cancer cells. When they tested this mutated toxin...