U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
NCBI/NLM/NIH Glossary
- cholera toxin
- The exotoxin from Vibrio cholerae. It is a protein that consists of two major components, the heavy (H) or A peptide and the light (L) or B peptide or choleragenoid which binds the whole protein to cell membranes, is nontoxic, but immunogenic. The A fragment causes cholera, probably due to the activation of adenylate cyclase; it consists of two polypeptide fragments