How does an animal cell destroy toxins?

Question

How does an animal cell destroy a toxin such as botox from its system? Could you please go through it step by step and in detail.

Answer 1

Alex--it's useful to think of what a toxin needs to do (or be) in order to be harmful. If it's a functional unit (like a small protein) then it's SHAPE as well as its structure may be critical; in the case of a small molecule (such as a 'drug') then its exact chemical structure is going to be critical to its ability to achieve its nefarious ends.

 

Either way, your cells need to 'break' the structure or the chemical bonds. There are several ways to do this. Many, many chemical reactions on biological molecules are accelerated at low or high pH, and the lysosome is 'pumped' to very low pH for just this reason* (it also has some tough enzymes that are themselves resistant to low pH and that like to smash things). The peroxisome is another nasty place--it houses chemically active forms of oxygen that are just waiting to get in touch with other molecules and seriously mess them up.

 

*Your stomach operates on VERY similar principles to your cells' lysosomes.

Answer 2

Alex,

 

Animal cells destroy toxic particles by combination of endocytosis, lysosome digestion and exocytosis.

 

Firstly, cell encircles the toxin in a small vesicle by endocytosis. If cell senses that toxin in vicinity then cell membrane creates projections around it to create a vesicle that brings the toxin inside the cell in a small vesicle separated from rest of the cytoplasm and cell contents. This Process  is endocytosis and the vesicle is called endocytic vesicle. 

 

Once this vesicle is formed, lysosomes in the cell become active and secrete lysozymes or enzymes to break the down and destroy the toxin. 

 

Endocytic vesicle slowly moves towards lysosomes and fuses with lysosomes, enzymes in lysosomes destroy those toxin particles and create non-functional residual bodies.

 

Residual bodies are again surrounded by newly formed vesicle, it is formed by membrane movement. The process is exocytosis and the vesicle is called exocytic vesicle the gradual moves towards the periphery of the cell and merges with cell membrane releasing residual bodies outside the cell. 

 

This is how cell deals with toxins, bacterial, viral and other toxic particles.

 

Best,