Exploiting endocytic pathways to prevent bacterial toxin infection

Many bacterial pathogens produce toxins that target intracellular molecules to alter or disrupt normal cellular function. To access the cell, these toxins often exploit endocytic pathways, recruit cellular machinery, or both to mediate their own internalization. Bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, so alternatives to treat or prevent diseases caused by bacterial toxins are necessary. The advent of small molecule inhibitors, which target key proteins involved in endocytic trafficking pathways, provides an opportunity to develop these compounds as potential therapeutic inhibitors of bacterial toxicity. This chapter reviews the endocytic pathways commonly hijacked by these toxins and the drugs that are currently being developed to inhibit specific proteins involved in endocytosis. It further evaluates the feasibility of using these compounds to investigate the modalities of the endocytosis and trafficking of bacterial toxins, and the potential for the use of these drugs as therapeutics in the future