title: The family of bacterial ADP-ribosylating exotoxins.
abstract: Pathogenic bacteria utilize a variety of virulence factors that contribute to the clinical manifestation of their pathogenesis. Bacterial ADP-ribosylating exotoxins (bAREs) represent one family of virulence factors that exert their toxic effects by transferring the ADP-ribose moiety of NAD onto specific eucaryotic target proteins. The observations that some bAREs ADP-ribosylate eucaryotic proteins that regulate signal transduction, like the heterotrimeric GTP-binding proteins and the low-molecular-weight GTP-binding proteins, has extended interest in bAREs beyond the bacteriology laboratory. Molecular studies have shown that bAREs possess little primary amino acid homology and have diverse quaternary structure-function organization. Underlying this apparent diversity, biochemical and crystallographic studies have shown that several bAREs have conserved active-site structures and possess a conserved glutamic acid within their active sites.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 53226.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Krueger
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Barbieri
mesh_terms: D000246:Adenosine Diphosphate Ribose / Q000378:metabolism*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001427:Bacterial Toxins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D037342:Pertussis Toxin; D010566:Virulence Factors, Bordetella / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D001427:Bacterial Toxins; D010566:Virulence Factors, Bordetella; D000246:Adenosine Diphosphate Ribose; D037342:Pertussis Toxin