Cellular Activity of Salmonella Typhimurium ArtAB Toxin and Its Receptor-Binding Subunit

This project was a successful attempt to purify ArtAB, a toxin produced by the highly antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Typhimurium strain DT104, in the lab. Once we purified it, we tested it on mammalian cells to make sure our lab-purified toxin did what we expected it to do and acted like the native or natural toxin. We also compared it to other toxins in the same family. We know that it has a similar structure to pertussis toxin and cholera toxin, both of which make good vaccines, so we were gathering more information about how it works and if it could potentially be used as a vaccine itself. We published our purification methods and results in the journal Toxins and I was the first author.