Gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial toxins in sepsis: a brief review

Girish Ramachandran, Girish Ramachandran

Abstract

Bacterial sepsis is a major cause of fatality worldwide. Sepsis is a multi-step process that involves an uncontrolled inflammatory response by the host cells that may result in multi organ failure and death. Both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria play a major role in causing sepsis. These bacteria produce a range of virulence factors that enable them to escape the immune defenses and disseminate to remote organs, and toxins that interact with host cells via specific receptors on the cell surface and trigger a dysregulated immune response. Over the past decade, our understanding of toxins has markedly improved, allowing for new therapeutic strategies to be developed. This review summarizes some of these toxins and their role in sepsis.

Keywords: LPS; TLR4; TNFα; cytokine storm; sepsis; superantigens.

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