Mechanism of action of cholera toxin

Abstract

Cholera "toxin binds to the outside of cells and one of its sub-units enters to activate adenylate cyclase. In the current work the nature of this action across the membrane was related to the hydrophobicities of cholera toxin and its subunits. Charge—shift electrophoresis showed that the proteins have no hydrophobic surfaces. Amino—acid composition and sequence data suggested that the molecules have no masked hydrophobic regions. Therefore part of cholera toxin may interact with polar molecules during its passage across the membrane.