Toxin and Immunotoxin Based Therapeutic Approaches

The concept of “magic bullets”, i.e., drugs able to selectively act on target cells, formulated by Paul Ehrlich more than one century ago, gave rise to the idea of immunotargeting, one of the most studied approaches being based on antibodies carrying toxic moieties [1]. Bacterial or plant toxins can be joined to specific carriers through chemical linking or genetic engineering, antibodies being the most used carriers and the generated hybrid molecules having been named immunotoxins. These conjugates are functionally designed to eliminate pathological cells, finding applications in several fields such as cancer, immunological diseases or pain control. The studies collected in this volume confirm the efficacy and the potentiality of toxins as payloads of immunotoxins/conjugates designed for targeted therapy on several cancer models. Moreover, the knowledge of the structural and binding characteristics of toxins and related conjugates, together with the elucidation of their mechanism(s) of action, provide useful information for better pharmacological strategies with the aim of achieving a higher specificity and potency in targeting and destroying cancer cells.