X-Nico

unusual facts about Diphtheria toxin


Diphtheria toxin

It catalyzes the transfer of NAD+ to a diphthamide residue in eukaryotic elongation factor-2 (eEF2), inactivating this protein.


Passive immunity

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 Shibasaburō, antitoxin became the first major success of modern therapeutic immunology.


see also

Synthetic vaccine

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.