Osipov AV, Cheremnykh EG, Ziganshin RH, Starkov VG, Nguyen TTT, Nguyen KC, Le DT, Hoang AN, Tsetlin VI, Utkin YN. The Potassium Channel Blocker β-Bungarotoxin from the Krait
Bungarus multicinctus Venom Manifests Antiprotozoal Activity.
Biomedicines 2023;
11:biomedicines11041115. [PMID:
37189733 DOI:
10.3390/biomedicines11041115]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2023] [Revised: 03/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/04/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Protozoal infections are a world-wide problem. The toxicity and somewhat low effectiveness of the existing drugs require the search for new ways of protozoa suppression. Snake venom contains structurally diverse components manifesting antiprotozoal activity; for example, those in cobra venom are cytotoxins. In this work, we aimed to characterize a novel antiprotozoal component(s) in the Bungarus multicinctus krait venom using the ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis as a model organism. To determine the toxicity of the substances under study, surviving ciliates were registered automatically by an original BioLaT-3.2 instrument. The krait venom was separated by three-step liquid chromatography and the toxicity of the obtained fractions against T. pyriformis was analyzed. As a result, 21 kDa protein toxic to Tetrahymena was isolated and its amino acid sequence was determined by MALDI TOF MS and high-resolution mass spectrometry. It was found that antiprotozoal activity was manifested by β-bungarotoxin (β-Bgt) differing from the known toxins by two amino acid residues. Inactivation of β-Bgt phospholipolytic activity with p-bromophenacyl bromide did not change its antiprotozoal activity. Thus, this is the first demonstration of the antiprotozoal activity of β-Bgt, which is shown to be independent of its phospholipolytic activity.
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