Biological Toxins as the Potential Tools for Bioterrorism

Abstract

Biological toxins are a heterogeneous group produced by living organisms. One dictionary defines them as “Chemicals produced by living organisms that have toxic properties for another organism”. Toxins are very attractive to terrorists for use in acts of bioterrorism. The first reason is that many biological toxins can be obtained very easily. Simple bacterial culturing systems and extraction equipment dedicated to plant toxins are cheap and easily available, and can even be constructed at home. Many toxins affect the nervous systems of mammals by interfering with the transmission of nerve impulses, which gives them their high potential in bioterrorist attacks. Others are responsible for blockage of main cellular metabolism, causing cellular death. Moreover, most toxins act very quickly and are lethal in low doses (LD50 < 25 mg/kg), which are very often lower than chemical warfare agents. For these reasons we decided to prepare this review paper which main aim is to present the high potential of biological toxins as factors of bioterrorism describing the general characteristics, mechanisms of action and treatment of most potent biological toxins. In this paper we focused on six most danger toxins: botulinum toxin, staphylococcal enterotoxins, Clostridium perfringens toxins, ricin, abrin and T-2 toxin. We hope that this paper will help in understanding the problem of availability and potential of biological toxins.

Biosecurity Threat Posed by Botulinum Toxin

“…In these contexts, there is a certain attractiveness of using BAs over conventional (e.g., explosives) or other unconventional (i.e., chemicals or radiological/nuclear) agents. It lies in the relatively lower cost of production in comparison to conventional agents [38], the very low LD 50 -especially for toxins-compared with chemical agents [39], and, consequently, the very small quantities required to affect large numbers of people. Moreover, some of the BAs of concern are also transmissible person-to-person, or are difficult to diagnose (due to symptoms that can mimic the early phase of common, naturally occurring diseases, e.g., influenza-like illnesses or gastroenteritis).…”

Bacillus anthracis as a biological warfare agent: infection, diagnosis and countermeasures

“…B. anthracis is considered as one of the top biological warfare agents from the A category. Beside B. anthracis, microorganisms Francisella tularensis and Yersinia pestis, viruses Variola major and hemorrhagic fevers viruses like Ebola, Lassa, Machupo and Marburg, and Clostridium botulinum with its botulinum toxin are in the same category (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). Beside of biological warfare agents, there is a high number of microorganisms that are able to cause serious infections, but they are not considered as biological warfare agents because of their slow limited tactical impact.…”

Mapping Immunodominant Antibody Epitopes of Abrin

“…To date, there is no effective postexposure treatment for abrin poisoning, and efforts are made to develop an efficient vaccine and measures for postexposure therapy [5]. Interestingly, abrin and ricin toxin share a marked homology in their sequence (42% for their A-chain and 59% for the B-chain) [6], and there is well-established body of knowledge on the immunodominant epitopes of ricin.…”