It catalyzes the transfer of NAD+ to a diphthamide residue in eukaryotic elongation factor-2 (eEF2), inactivating this protein.
toxin | Shiga toxin | Uremic toxin | diphtheria toxin | Botulinum toxin |
In 1888 Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin isolated diphtheria toxin, and following the 1890 discovery of an antitoxin-based immunity to diphtheria and tetanus, by Emil Adolf von Behring and Kitasato ShibasaburÅ, antitoxin became the first major success of modern therapeutic immunology.
The world's first synthetic vaccine was created in 1982 from diphtheria toxin by Louis Chedid (scientist) from the Pasteur Institute and Michael Sela from the Weizmann Institute.