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Venomous and Poisonous Animals - A Biologist’s View
Published in Jürg Meier, Julian White, Handbook of: Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons, 2017
The term Toxinology was introduced in 1962, when the International Society on Toxinology was founded4. This society was established with the aim to accumulate and exchange knowledge on the venoms and poisons derived from animals, plants and microorganisms. Since the word “biotoxin” is often used for toxins derived from these sources, the term “biotoxicology” was taken under consideration for a short time. However, the prefix “bio-” was found to be redundant, because “toxins” are invariably derived from living organisms. Thus, Toxinology was thought to be more appropriate.
Proteomic analysis reveals geographic variation in venom composition of Russell’s Viper in the Indian subcontinent: implications for clinical manifestations post-envenomation and antivenom treatment
Published in Expert Review of Proteomics, 2018
Bhargab Kalita, Stephen P. Mackessy, Ashis K. Mukherjee
During the last quarter of the twentieth century, biochemical and pharmacological characterization, and purification of several proteins from RVV have provided valuable information to understand the complexity of RVV. Nevertheless, a detailed profile on the non-enzymatic sub-proteome as well the minor RVV components was still warranted. The recent technological advancements in the field of mass spectrometry coupled to robust database search algorithms, and the advent of powerful protein separation strategies (fast protein liquid chromatography, RP-HPLC, 2D SDS-PAGE) have led to accelerated knowledge on venom composition and its clinical correlations. The introduction of ‘omics’ technologies, by the integration of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics, in the early twenty-first century have provided comprehensive perspectives in molecular toxinology. Successful treatment of snake envenoming relies on the ability of antivenoms to recognize and neutralize the venom toxins. However, due to the extensive complexity and variability of snake venoms, antivenoms often fail to provide extensive protection to bite victims. In addition, antivenoms have become either scarce or expensive in the low and middle-income countries where snake envenoming is a frequently encountered medical threat. Another key concern is the selection and design of venom mixtures for equine immunization so that the antivenoms are effective in a wide geographic area where they are commercially distributed. This important issue can be addressed by proteomic and antivenomics analyses of venoms and antivenoms that can guide in selecting the best combination of venoms/toxins for antivenom production.
Snake venomics – from low-resolution toxin-pattern recognition to toxin-resolved venom proteomes with absolute quantification
Published in Expert Review of Proteomics, 2018
The term ‘“venomics”’ was coined in 2004 to describe an analytical strategy to unveil the global proteome composition of snake venoms [1]. As proof-of-concept, a venomics platform, consisting of the combination of cysteine mapping, N-terminal Edman degradation, and de novo sequencing by tandem mass spectrometry of internal tryptic peptides gathered by in-gel digestion of sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) bands of reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separated venom proteins, was applied to characterize the venom of the dusky pigmy rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius barbouri, a pit viper subspecies endemic to the southeastern United States [1]. That was the first time that my laboratory was faced with the challenge of portraying the compositional complexity of a snake venom. Until then, our research had focused on the study of structure-function correlations of disintegrins, low molecular mass, cysteine-rich peptides isolated from the venom of Viperidae and Crotalidae snake species, and which antagonize the binding of ligands to integrin receptors [2–4], thereby impairing the biochemical signals that these adhesive receptors bi-directionally transduce through the cell plasma membrane [5]. In the course of the development of chromatographic methods for the isolation and quantification of disintegrins from different venoms we set out to analyze the ‘other components of the chromatogram’, in order to get a detailed view of the molecular environment of disintegrins in the crude venom. The interest this work aroused among the toxinology community encouraged us to adopt venomics as a main research avenue in our laboratory. Conceptual and technological alliances, for example standalone de novo bottom-up peptide-centered approaches or, more and more frequently the integration of homologous venom gland transcriptomics, bioinformatic analysis and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) workflows [6,7], that contributed to the transition from the description of the inventory of toxins present in a venom to a full biological discipline, have been reviewed in previous papers [8–12]. Starting from this base, this review focuses on recent (2015–to date) advances toward the development of integrative venomics and discusses foreseeable near future developments in the field.