Vaccination against ricin using either denatured toxin or its modified A chain subunit (RTA) has been successful in experimental animals but both vaccines have potential toxicities. Recombinant (r) RTA has not been evaluated as a vaccine. However, the advantage of such a vaccine is that these potential toxicities can be deleted by appropriate mutations. In this study three mutants were generated and shown that two lack toxicity as compared to the wild type rRTA. These mutants induce protective humoral immune responses in mice (Smallshaw et al., 2002).
References
Smallshaw et al., 2002: Smallshaw JE, Firan A, Fulmer JR, Ruback SL, Ghetie V, Vitetta ES. A novel recombinant vaccine which protects mice against ricin intoxication. Vaccine. 2002; 20(27-28); 3422-3427. [PubMed: 12213413].
