RAPID BIOASSAY FOR CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM TYPE-E TOXINS BY INTRAVENOUS INJECTION INTO MICE

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A bioassay method for Clostridium botulinum type-E toxins has been proposed. The method consists of intravenous injections into mice with serially diluted toxin samples and a reference toxin, determination of the time in minutes from injection to death of each mouse, conversion of the time into an appropriate score, and calculation of the toxicity relative to that of a stable, wellstandardized reference toxin by the parallel-line-assay method. If five mice are injected with each of four to five serial twofold dilutions, the fiducial limits of the toxicity will be about ±27-30%. This method enables us to determine the toxicities of several samples in an hour or two, and the relative value to a reference toxin is highly reproducible. The proposed method to calculate ip LD50 from the death time is applicable only to the trypsin-activated toxin in the undissociated as well as dissociated forms containing about 500 or more ip LD50/ml.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: