Report from the 27th (Virtual) Meeting on Toxinology, "Toxins: Mr Hyde or Dr Jekyll?", Organized by the French Society of Toxinology, 9-10 December 2021

Abstract

The French Society of Toxinology (SFET) organized its 27th annual meeting on 9-10 December 2021 as a virtual meeting (e-RT27). The central theme of this meeting was "Toxins: Mr Hyde or Dr Jekyll?", emphasizing the latest findings on plant, fungal, algal, animal and bacterial toxins during 10 lectures, 15 oral communications (shorter lectures) and 20 posters shared by ca. 80 participants. The abstracts of lectures and posters, as well as the winners of the best oral communication and poster awards, are presented in this report.

Keywords: animal toxin; bacterial toxin; marine toxin; medical application; plant toxin; toxin function/activity; toxin receptor/target; toxin structure.

Figure 1

Sponsor logos.

Figure 2

Winners of the “Best Oral Communication” and “Best Poster” Awards at the 27th Meeting of the French Society of Toxinology (SFET).

Figure 3

The membrane-active segment (yellow) of the CyaA toxin translocates across the plasma membrane and binds calmodulin (red), which assists the entry and refolding of the catalytic domain (blue) into host cells while the hydrophobic and acylation domains (green) interact with the membrane, and the C-terminal Repeat-in-Toxin domain (grey) remains in the extra-cellular milieu. The cAMP production ultimately leads to cell death.