Proposed BoNT/A and /B Peptide Substrates Cannot Detect Multiple Subtypes in the Endopep-MS Assay

Abstract

Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) are a family of protein toxins consisting of seven known serotypes (BoNT/A-BoNT/G) and multiple subtypes within the serotypes, and all of which cause the disease botulism-a disease of great public health concern. Accurate detection of BoNTs in human clinical samples is therefore an important public health goal. To achieve this goal, our laboratory developed a mass spectrometry-based assay detecting the presence of BoNT via its enzymatic activity on a peptide substrate. Recently, publications reported the use of new peptide substrates to detect BoNT/A and /B with improved results over other peptide substrates. However, the authors did not provide results of their peptide substrate on multiple subtypes of BoNT. In this work, we describe the results of testing the new substrates with multiple BoNT/A and /B subtypes and find that the substrates cannot detect many subtypes of BoNT/A and /B.