Glycans Confer Specificity to the Recognition of Ganglioside Receptors by Botulinum Neurotoxin A
The highly poisonous botulinum neurotoxins, produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, act on their hosts by a high-affinity association to two receptors on neuronal cell surfaces as the first step of invasion. The glycan motifs of gangliosides serve as initial coreceptors for these protein complexes, whereby a membrane protein receptor is bound. Herein we set out to characterize the carbohy
