Adenosine Diphosphoribosylation of Aminoacyl Transferase II by Diphtheria Toxin

Strauss and Hendee (1959), Kato and Pappenheimer (1960) and Kato (1962) have shown that diphtheria toxin inhibits mammalian protein synthesis in cell-free systems as well as in cultured cells. Collier and Pappenheimer (1964) have shown subsequently that NAD is absolutely required for this inhibition of protein synthesis in cell-free systems obtained from HeLa cells and from rabbit reticulocytes. More recently Collier (1967), and Goor and Pappenheimer (1967) have demonstrated that toxin specifically inactivates aminoacyl transferase II, one of the soluble factors which assemble amino acids into a polypeptide chain as directed by messenger RNA. It has been further shown that the inactivation of transferase II can be prevented or reversed by the presence of a sufficient concentration of nicotinamide (Goor et al., 1967). In this article, evidence will be briefly presented indicating that diphtheria toxin transfers the ADP-ribose portion of NAD to transferase II, resulting in a concurrent inactivation of...