Figure 1.

CDT cellular intoxication pathway. CdtA and CdtC bind to cell membrane cholesterol-rich microdomains and facilitate CdtB entry into cells through clathrin-coated pit endocytosis. Following internalization, CdtB translocates to the cytosol and may undergo retrograde trafficking from the Golgi complex into the endoplasmic reticulum. The CdtB subunit ultimately translocates to the nucleus by virtue of a putative nuclear localization signal present in its amino-acid sequence. Once in the nucleus, CdtB induces DNA double-strand breaks, which lead to cell-cycle arrest.