Tetanus toxin detoxification

Thaysen-Andersen M, Jprgensen SB, Wilhehnsen ES, et al. Investigation of the detoxification mechanism of formaldehyde-treated tetanus toxin. Vaccine. 2007 25 2213-2227. 

The quality control of both diphtheria and tetanus vaccines requires that the products are tested for the presence of free toxin, that is for specific toxicity due to inadequate detoxification with formalin, at the final-product stage. By this stage, however, the toxoid concentrates used in the preparation of the vaccines have been much diluted and, as the volume ofvaccine that can be inoculated into the test animals (guinea-pigs)... 

Several highly immunogenic bacterial proteins have been proposed as carriers for conjugate vaccines. The list includes bacterial pili, outer membrane proteins (OMPs), and excreted toxins of pathogenic bacteria [105], preferably in toxoid fomr Tetanus and diphteria toxoids, which are readily available and accepted for human use, are the preferred carrier despite the lot-to-lot variations during the detoxification procedure. 

The treated toxins are sometimes referred to as formol toxoids. Toxoid vaccines are very effective in the prevention of those diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, botulism and clostridial infections of farm animals, in which the infecting bacteria produce disease through the toxic effects of secreted proteins which enzymically modify essential cellular components. Many of the clostridial toxins are lytic enzymes. Detoxification is also required for the pertussis toxin component of acellular pertussis vaccines. 

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