Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Clin Vaccine Immunol 2008 Nov;15(11):1737-41

Role of the N-terminal amino acid of Bacillus anthracis lethal factor in lethal toxin cytotoxicity and its effect on the lethal toxin neutralization assay.

Verma A, Wagner L, Stibitz S, Nguyen N, Guerengomba F, Burns DL

The cytotoxic activity of lethal factor (LF), a critical reagent used in the cell-based lethal toxin neutralization assay to assess anthrax vaccines, was shown to depend on the identity of its N-terminal amino acid which plays a role in the targeting of LF to the proteasome for degradation. These results demonstrate that care must be taken to ensure that LF preparations used in standardized cell-based assays are not altered at their N-terminal ends.