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Updated: Jul 16, 2025

Visualization of Bacterial Toxin Induced Responses Using Live Cell Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: October 1, 2012
Revisiting Coley's Toxins: Immunogenic Cardiolipins from Streptococcus pyogenes
Yern-Hyerk Shin1, Sunghee Bang1, Sung-Moo Park2,3
1Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School and Blavatnik Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
Abstract:
Coley's toxins, an early and enigmatic form of cancer (immuno)therapy, were based on preparations of Streptococcus pyogenes. As part of a program to explore bacterial metabolites with immunomodulatory potential, S. pyogenes metabolites were assayed in a cell-based immune assay, and a single membrane lipid, 18:1/18:0/18:1/18:0 cardiolipin, was identified. Its activity was profiled in additional cellular assays, which showed it to be an agonist of a TLR2-TLR1 signaling pathway with a 6 μM EC50 and robust TNF-α induction. A synthetic analog with switched acyl chains had no measurable activity in immune assays. The identification of a single immunogenic cardiolipin with a restricted structure-activity profile has implications for immune regulation, cancer immunotherapy, and poststreptococcal autoimmune diseases.
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