Botulinum neurotoxin A inhibitor developed via all-synthetic click epitope targeting chemistry
Monday, June 8, 2015 - 05:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Botulinum toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum is one of the most potent toxins known to humankind—despite its astonishing career in cosmetics applications to prevent development of wrinkles by paralyzing facial muscles. Developing potent antidotes to the toxin is extremely challenging. American scientists have managed to design a fully synthetic inhibitor to the BoNT/A protein by both rationalizing the cell entrance mechanism of BoNT and making use of the click chemistry approach. This intriguing and successful design is presented in the journal Angewandte Chemie.