In addition to their role in toxicology, recent work has demonstrated that these compounds elicit biological responses from cells. These studies suggest a potential role for HOCl as an important inflammatory mediator in addition to its well known ability to kill microbes. Some well known toxins include botulinum toxin and cholera toxin.
Bacteria also cause disease by specific binding to and invasion into target cells.
The mechanism for this enhanced virulence is presently unknown. We hypothesize that the iron-dependent virulence is found only in strains which are capable of evading the host phagocytic defense. Multiple lines of research are ongoing.