A new type of botulinum neurotoxin has been discovered – the first one in nearly 50 years.
Scientists at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Harvard Medical School, USA, say their discovery could open up a new field of toxin therapeutics related to intracellular membrane trafficking and secretion.
The new botulinum neurotoxin was discovered after the genome of bacteria was isolated in 2015 – 20 years after a sample was taken from an ill child in Japan in 1995. The genome was sequenced and deposited in a database and the novel toxin was found among the four million letter blueprint of the bacterium.
Botulinum toxins are used to treat more than 80 medical conditions, including muscle spasms, overactive bladder, chronic migraine and cervical dystonia.
Pål Stenmark, associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Stockholm University, said they will now look to develop detection methods and treatments. This is crucial, he said, because botulinum neurotoxins are extremely toxic substances.
“The discovery of BoNT/X facilitates the development of diagnostics and countermeasures which is important if someone would be exposed to a toxic amount of the substance,” he said.
“Within a few months we will have developed ways of detecting if a person has been subject to BoNT/X.”
The researchers are now looking at the structure of the toxin to see how it binds to the nerve cell and are also investigating the unique properties of BoNT/X to establish how it can be used most effectively to develop new therapeutics.
“When we first discovered this toxin I believed we had made some error in the analysis, but after checking several times it turned out to be correct,” added Professor Stenmark.
Zhang S, Masuyer G, Zhang J et al. Identification and characterization of a novel botulinum neurotoxin. Nature Communications August 2017; doi:10.1038/ncomms14130
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