Nature Communications (Apr 2017)

A brain-sparing diphtheria toxin for chemical genetic ablation of peripheral cell lineages

  • Mafalda M. A. Pereira,
  • Inês Mahú,
  • Elsa Seixas,
  • Noelia Martinéz-Sánchez,
  • Nadiya Kubasova,
  • Roksana M Pirzgalska,
  • Paul Cohen,
  • Marcelo O Dietrich,
  • Miguel López,
  • Gonçalo J. L. Bernardes,
  • Ana I. Domingos

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14967
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Diphtheria toxin selectively kills cells engineered to express the diphtheria toxin receptor (DTR). Here the authors report a PEGylated version of diphtheria toxin that does not enter the brain, allowing for ablation of only peripheral cells when using Cre lines that drive DTR expression in both the periphery and in the brain.