Bacterial Toxin

Bacterial Toxin

Toxin: Toxins are poisons, protein or conjugated protein, produced by some higher plants, certain animals and pathogenic bacteria that are highly toxic to other living organisms.

Bacterial toxins are two types:

  1.Exotoxin.

  2.Endotoxin.

Difference between exotoxin and endotoxin:

Exotoxin	Endotoxin
Excreted by living cell of bacteria.	Excreted only after death of bacteria.
Produced by gram positive and gram negative bacteria.	Produced by gram negative bacteria.
Highly toxic	Moderately toxic.
Highly antigenic	Weakly antigenic
Heat labile	Heat stable
Protein in nature	Lipo-polysaccharide in nature.
Usually do not produce fever.	Usually produce fever
Exotoxin producing bacteria: (i)C.dihtheria (ii)Cl.tetani.	Endotoxin producing bacteria: (i) E.coli (ii)Salmonella typhi.