Purification and some physicochemical properties of toxic-shock toxin

Abstract

A procedure for the purification of a protein marker for the staphylococci isolated from toxic-shock syndrome patients has been developed. The purification procedure involves the removal of the toxic protein from culture supernatant fluids of toxic-shock syndrome associated Staphylococcus aureus strains FRI-1169 and FRI-1183 by batch absorption with CG-50 resin, ion-exchange chromatography on CM-Sepharose CL-6B, and gel permeation chromatography on Sephacryl S-200. The purified toxin is a simple protein with a molecular weight of 24 000 +/- 500 as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The isoelectric point of the major band is 7.0 as determined by isoelectric focusing in polyacrylamide gels. The TS-toxin's reactivity with its specific antibody is not affected by tryptic digestion at pH 8.0 but is slowly reduced by treatment with pepsin at pH 4.5. The TS-toxin consists of 188 amino acid residues. Serine was shown to be the NH2-terminal amino acid residue by end-group analysis. Initial studies indicated the protein was emetic; thus tentatively it was called staphylococcal enterotoxin F. In this paper it is called TS-toxin because the emetic action in monkeys has not been confirmed.

Staphylococcal food poisoning in the United Kingdom, 1969–90

“…Foods were tested for the presence of enterotoxin (SE) by the double gel diffusion slide test from 1969 to 1985 [6], by the ELISA developed by Notermans and colleagues [7] (ELISA-P) from 1982 to 1986 (for SEA and SEB only), with the ELISA kit from Dr Bommeli AG, Stationsstrasse 12, CH-3097 Berne, Switzerland (ELISA-B) and/or by the RPLA test (SET-RPLA, TD900, Unipath, Basingstoke, UK), from 1985 onwards. SEC,, SEC2 and SEC3 cross-react [8] and no distinction is made between them in these tests. Neither the ELISA nor the RPLA kits contain reagents for the detection of SEE.…”

A review of analytical methods for the detection of bacterial toxins

“…To date, seven serologically distinct enterotoxins have been identified and characterized (A, B, C 1 , C 2 , C 3 , D and E). The three C enterotoxins cross-react and are therefore not usually analysed separately (Reiser et al 1984). They are simple, low molecular weight (27 500-30 000) single chain proteins (Tranter 1991).…”

Toxic shock syndrome

“…In September 1980, an epidemiologic report of the association of TSS specifically with one brand of tampon (Rely) (141) resulted in its removal from the market and a general public impression (albeit erroneous) that TSS was solely a tampon-related disease (56,141,168 (12,149); subsequently, these proteins were confirmed to be one and the same and thereafter have been called toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1) (23,42,136).…”

“…Extensive investigations of the epidemiology of TSS and the chemical and biological features of TSST-1 resulted in the general impression that the pathogenesis of TSS was straightforward (13,14,53,136,142,143,145,147). However, recent studies suggest a more complex microbe-host relationship.…”