The phrase
"lethal toxin" refers to a substance or poison that can cause serious harm or even death to living organisms.
Full definition
Cells were treated
with lethal toxin for 2 hrs followed by IL - 23 stimulation for 6 hrs.
The idea of
using lethal toxins to make life - saving medicines may seem unconventional, but humans have been doing it for centuries.
In many immune cells,
lethal toxin turns off signaling events through degradation of intermediate signaling components.
After the initial period of
lethal toxin treatment (3 hrs), serum was replenished to a full concentration of 10 %.
MNK3 clone B3 cells were treated with
lethal toxin for 2 hr followed by IL - 23 stimulation for the time points indicated.
Unlike IL -23-mediated ERK1 / 2 activation, p38 activation was not modulated by IL - 23 but it was modulated
by lethal toxin in MNK - 3 cells.
(D) The JAK2 - STAT3 pathway was not affected by
lethal toxin in MNK3 cells.
As p38 activation is often associated with IL - 1β signaling, and IL - 1β can also induce IL - 22 in ILC3s, we also examined the effect
of lethal toxin on IL - 1β - mediated activation of ILC3s.
In our in vivo toxin model we examined the systemic effects of
lethal toxin on ILC3s.
In our ex vivo stimulated cells we also examined whether
lethal toxin modulated GM - CSF production, which is induced in ILC3s by IL - 1β [51].
However, this phosphorylated p38 was undetectable in
lethal toxin treated cells (Fig 4A), correlating with lack of MKK3 and MKK6, suggesting the toxin interfered with p38 activation through upstream interference of MKK levels.
Using a mixed lymphocyte population obtained from a mucosal tissue (tonsils) we treated cells with or
without lethal toxin for 3 hr and then stimulated the cells with or without IL - 23.
In summary,
lethal toxin down - modulated IL -23-mediated IL - 22 production in both mouse and human ILC3s.
These findings are consistent with the notion that
lethal toxin inhibits IL - 23 signal transduction leading to IL - 22 production in ILC3s.
Significantly fewer ILCs from mice treated with
lethal toxin produced GM - CSF compared to ILCs from control mice (Fig 6B and 6C).
To translate our in vitro studies in mouse and human ILC3s to an intact organism, we examined
if lethal toxin modulated ILC3 function in mice.
For initial
lethal toxin experiments splenocytes / tonsillar lymphocytes were cultured in media containing in 0.1 % serum to minimize the effect of serum on lethal factor enzyme activity.
Therefore, in vivo
lethal toxin administration can reduce the ability of ILC3s in several different tissues to produce IL - 22 and GM - CSF.
The genetic change that gives one group of frogs immunity to a
particularly lethal toxin also disrupts a key chemical messenger in the brain.
Many of the sales take place through Web sites, and most of the counterfeits contain real toxin, meaning that basement brewers may already be
cultivating lethal toxin - making bacteria to satisfy avid consumer demand.
More researchers are using nanoparticles to
deliver lethal toxins specifically to cancer cells, leaving regular cells unharmed.
We have shown here another potential mechanism for
how lethal toxin perturbs barrier function through the down - regulation of a key effector molecule, IL - 22, in mucosal barrier maintenance and wound repair.
Citation: Seshadri S, Allan DSJ, Carlyle JR, Zenewicz LA (2017) Bacillus anthracis
lethal toxin negatively modulates ILC3 function through perturbation of IL -23-mediated MAPK signaling.
Therefore, we also examined MKK3 and MKK6 levels in MNK - 3 cells
after lethal toxin treatment.
The
term lethal toxin is a misnomer and the toxin has limited ability to kill most cells [41].
We found that
lethal toxin suppressed IL - 22 production (S5A and S5B Fig) and also ablated IL - 1β - mediated phoshphorylation of p38 through loss of total p38 (S5C Fig).
Thus,
lethal toxin did not interfere with the JAK - STAT pathway, the canonical IL - 23 signaling pathway in ILC3s.
(A) MNK - 3 cells were treated with or without 1 μg /
ml lethal toxin (LeTx) or lethal factor only (LF) for 3 hrs and then stimulated with recombinant mouse IL - 23 (50 ng / ml), IL - 1β (20 ng / ml, from eBioscience) or no cytokine for 18 hrs.
Our results suggest that
lethal toxin from B. anthracis subverts ILC3 function by modulating the p38 signaling pathway.
Rather lethal toxin triggered the loss of several MAP2K kinases, which correlated with reduced activation of downstream ERK1 / 2 and p38, respectively.
Importantly, the phospho - ERK1 / 2 signal was completely abrogated
upon lethal toxin treatment, which also correlated with loss of MEK1 and MEK2 (Fig 4A).
In this study, we show that
lethal toxin interferes in a specific signaling pathway, MAPK, which is significant because it is not usually associated with IL -23-mediated signaling.
Here we show that
lethal toxin impairs IL - 22 production by ILC3s using in vitro and in vivo studies.
Together, these data show that treatment of ILC3s with
lethal toxin prevented activation of ERK1 / 2 and the maintenance of p38, which correlated with the loss of their upstream activators, MEK1 / 2 and MKK3 / 6.
Purified mouse ILCs (Lin - CD127 +, which may include ILC1s, ILC2s and ILC3s) were treated with or
without lethal toxin and / or IL - 23 and then Il22 expression and IL - 22 production were examined 6 hr later.
We also examined the effects of
lethal toxin on purified human ILCs (Lin - CD127 +) and found that IL -23-mediated IL - 22 secretion was generally decreased in the presence of the toxin (Fig 2B).
We found that
lethal toxin inhibited both constitutive and IL -23-mediated Il22 expression and IL - 22 production in this cell line (Fig 3A, 3B and 3C) without affecting cell viability (S3A — S3C Fig), recapitulating our experiments with primary mouse and human cells.
Thousands of jumbo squid have beached themselves along the coast of Monterey Bay, Calif., and some scientists have blamed the behavior on
lethal toxins produced by this year's red tides
To determine
if lethal toxin had any effect on STAT3 signaling, we tested the effect of the toxin on JAK2 and STAT3 phosphorylation.