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Review
. 2017 Jan 18;9(1):38.
doi: 10.3390/toxins9010038.

Historical Perspectives and Guidelines for Botulinum Neurotoxin Subtype Nomenclature

Michael W Peck  1 , Theresa J Smith  2 , Fabrizio Anniballi  3 , John W Austin  4 , Luca Bano  5 , Marite Bradshaw  6 , Paula Cuervo  7 , Luisa W Cheng  8 , Yagmur Derman  9 , Brigitte G Dorner  10 , Audrey Fisher  11 , Karen K Hill  12 , Suzanne R Kalb  13 , Hannu Korkeala  14 , Miia Lindström  15 , Florigio Lista  16 , Carolina Lúquez  17 , Christelle Mazuet  18 , Marco Pirazzini  19 , Michel R Popoff  20 , Ornella Rossetto  21 , Andreas Rummel  22 , Dorothea Sesardic  23 , Bal Ram Singh  24 , Sandra C Stringer  25
Affiliations
Review

Historical Perspectives and Guidelines for Botulinum Neurotoxin Subtype Nomenclature

Michael W Peck et al. Toxins (Basel). .

Abstract

Botulinum neurotoxins are diverse proteins. They are currently represented by at least seven serotypes and more than 40 subtypes. New clostridial strains that produce novel neurotoxin variants are being identified with increasing frequency, which presents challenges when organizing the nomenclature surrounding these neurotoxins. Worldwide, researchers are faced with the possibility that toxins having identical sequences may be given different designations or novel toxins having unique sequences may be given the same designations on publication. In order to minimize these problems, an ad hoc committee consisting of over 20 researchers in the field of botulinum neurotoxin research was convened to discuss the clarification of the issues involved in botulinum neurotoxin nomenclature. This publication presents a historical overview of the issues and provides guidelines for botulinum neurotoxin subtype nomenclature in the future.

Keywords: Clostridium botulinum; botulinum; botulism; guidelines; neurotoxins; nomenclature; subtypes.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dendrogram showing the relationship of all published/publicly-posted BoNT subtypes. The dendrograms were generated from protein sequence data using ClustalW with the representatives listed in Table 3. BoNT/FA is also known as BoNT/H and BoNT/HA (see the text for further details).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dendrogram showing the relationships of BoNT/A subtypes. A total of 127 amino acid sequences were analyzed. “HA-“ indicates BoNT/A1 encoding gene within a toxin cluster lacking genes encoding hemagglutinin proteins.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Dendrogram showing the relationships of BoNT/B subtypes. A total of 91 amino acid sequences were analyzed. The BoNT/B subtypes show the closest relationships, with amino acid differences ranging from 1.6%–7.1%.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Dendrogram showing the relationships of BoNT/C and BoNT/D subtypes. A total of 23 amino acid sequences were analyzed. The mosaic nature of these subtypes results in large differences in amino acid sequence (23.5%–48.8%).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Dendrogram showing the relationships of BoNT/E subtypes. A total of 235 amino acid sequences were analyzed.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Dendrogram showing the relationships of BoNT/F subtypes. A total of 52 amino acid sequences were analyzed. The scale for this dendrogram is significantly smaller than with the others due to the wider range of identity differences (7.8%–36.2%) within this serotype.
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