Purification of Clostridium botulinum Type A Neurotoxin

Botulinum neurotoxins produced by strains of the spore-bearing bacterium Clostridium botulinum have long been known to cause a distinctive paralytic disease in humans and animals (1 ). In recent years, injection of crystalline botulinum toxin type A has been demonstrated to provide relief from certain involuntary muscle disorders, dystonic conditions, pain syndromes, and headaches (2 ,3 ,4 ). The use of botulinum toxin for treatment of human disease and its usefulness in cell biology (5 ) has stimulated interest in the study of the toxin complexes and the neurotoxin component within the complexes. The use of botulinum toxin complex in medicine will benefit from the development of more potent, less antigenic, and longer-lasting toxin preparations. In this chapter we describe methods for production of high-quality botulinum type A toxin complex and neurotoxin. The procedures described in this chapter are not those used for preparation of botulinum toxin for medical use (3 ).