Protective agent, anthrax

The anthrax bioterrorist attacks that followed the events of September 11th 2001 resulted in a renewed interest BadUus anthracis, the causative agent of this disease. Research has focused on the development of better vaccines than the one currently available. It has been estimated that the aerosolized release of 100 kg of anthrax spores upwind of Washington DC would cause mortalities of 130,000-3,000,000 [63]. Nonetheless, wild-type Bacillus anthracis is susceptible to conventional antibiotics, including penicillin, oxyfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. The problem lies not with the bacterial infection itself, but with three proteins released by the bacteria - protective antigen (PA, 83 kDa), lethal factor (LF, 90 kDa) and edema factor (EF, 89 kDa) -known as anthrax toxins [63]. 

Backer, M. V., Patel,V., Jehning, B. T Claffey, K., Karginov, V. A., and Backer, J. M. (2007) Inhibition of anthrax protective antigen outside and inside the cell. Antimicrob. Agent. Chemother. 51, 245-251. 

MDF-lOO was advertised as being equally effective against biological agents. In response to the terrorist anthrax letters of 2001, MDF-lOO was considered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a decontaminant for facilities. Use of MDF-lOO was cancelled by the EPA in March 2002 because of concerns that it did not neutralize anthrax spores with sufficient speed. 

Another example where the importance of affinity has been clearly highlighted is the protective function of antibodies against toxic or infectious agents. For example, post-challenge protection against the anthrax toxin, a tripartite protein, correlated well with the dissociation constant of the antibody, all other properties being equal [75]. 

One of the early investigations of cellular metabolism in the MAMP concerned the discrimination of select list agents based on resulting changes in cellular metabolism upon exposure. The metabolic profiles of neuroblastoma, macrophage, and kidney cell lines exposed to ricin, botulinum neurotoxin, cholera toxin (CTx), muscarine, alamethicin and anthrax protective antigen (PA) were performed [22], and each presented... 

This is not the first time in history that military personnel have been ordered to be immunized against a possible BW agent, nor is the current policy debate over anthrax vaccinations for the US military unprecedented. Immunization programs to protect soldiers from infectious diseases— whether they be naturally present or in the form of a BW threat—go back at least four centuries, and some of these have also been quite controversial. For example, whether or not to continue vaccination of US troops against smallpox had been hotly debated, especially throughout the 1980s. 

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