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. 2022 Jun 16;11(6):690.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens11060690.

What Is Anthrax?

William A Bower  1 , Katherine A Hendricks  1 , Antonio R Vieira  1 , Rita M Traxler  1 , Zachary Weiner  1 , Ruth Lynfield  2 , Alex Hoffmaster  1
Affiliations

What Is Anthrax?

William A Bower et al. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Anthrax has been feared for its high mortality in animals and humans for centuries. The etiologic agent is considered a potentially devastating bioweapon, and since 1876-when Robert Koch demonstrated that Bacillus anthracis caused anthrax-it has been considered the sole cause of the disease. Anthrax is, however, a toxin-mediated disease. The toxins edema toxin and lethal toxin are formed from protein components encoded for by the pXO1 virulence plasmid present in pathogenic B. anthracis strains. However, other members of the Bacillus cereus group, to which B. anthracis belongs, have recently been shown to harbor the pXO1 plasmid and produce anthrax toxins. Infection with these Bacillus cereus group organisms produces a disease clinically similar to anthrax. This suggests that anthrax should be defined by the exotoxins encoded for by the pXO1 plasmid rather than the bacterial species it has historically been associated with, and that the definition of anthrax should be expanded to include disease caused by any member of the B. cereus group containing the toxin-producing pXO1 plasmid or anthrax toxin genes specifically.

Keywords: Bacillus anthracis; Bacillus cereus; Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis; Bacillus tropicus; anthrax; pathogenesis; plasmids.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors have submitted the MDPI Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interest. No conflict considered relevant to the content of the manuscript were disclosed.

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