Abstract

Bacterial toxins play major roles in developing infections and can cause diverse morphological and physiological changes via certain biochemical mechanisms leading to cell death. Most of the bacterial toxins induce apoptosis in host cell by intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways that are caused by intracellular organelle dysfunction and caspase cascade activation. Some of bacterial toxins encourage the programmed necrosis (necroptosis) in mature RBCs. In addition, pore-forming toxins can induce autophagy. Another kind of cell death, the pyroptosis, is induced by Salmonella typhimurium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Shigella flexneri and the lethal toxin of Bacillus anthracis. Therefore, recently scientists utilize cytotoxic properties of bacterial toxins for designing novel anti-tumor drugs.