Abstract
The development of diagnostic tests for the botulinum neurotoxins is complicated by their extremely high potencies and the considerable diversity observed within the neurotoxin family. Current approaches for the detection of the toxins and the organism include amplified immunoassays and PCR techniques. Assays which exploit the biological activities within the botulinum toxins are also in development. These are based on both antibody and mass spectrometric techniques which measure the endopeptidase activities of the neurotoxins. This overview of the Assays and Detection Workshop of the 5th International Conference on Basic and Therapeutic Aspects of Botulinum and Tetanus Neurotoxins discusses recent progress in the development of these assay systems and the issues that need to be overcome prior to their implementation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 205-216 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Neurotoxicity Research |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 2-3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2006 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Work at the Health Protection Agency is supported by the UK Department of Health and a grant to C.S. from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (RO1 AI055578). C.E. would like to acknowledge Stephen Davis and George Hannett from the Wadsworth Center, NYSDOH, for their contributions to this work. A.B. thanks John Barr, Hercules Moura, Suzy Kalb, Adrian Woolfitt, Lisa McWilliams, and Jurgen Schmidt who have made major contributions to the development of the Endopep-MS method.
Keywords
- Assay
- Botulinum
- Detection
- Endopeptidase
- Neurotoxin
- PCR