Molecular Recognition and Immunopharmacological Implications of Serratiopeptidase Targeting Snake Venom Bradykinin-Potentiating Peptides

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  Molecular Recognition and Immunopharmacological Implications of Serratiopeptidase Targeting Snake Venom Bradykinin-Potentiating Peptides Abstract Purpose Bradykinin-potentiating peptides (BPPs), found in snake venom, are known to modulate cardiovascular functions, but their susceptibility to enzymatic degradation remains poorly understood. Methods Models were generated using AlphaFold-Colab for five small BPPs (< 9 amino acids) that did not have experimentally solved structures, and those BPPs which had reliable predictions of structure (pLDDT > 80) were used for docking studies. Protein-peptide docking experiments were done using HADDOCK for studying the interaction between wild-type (WT) and mutant serratiopeptidase with BPPs. After selecting the best complex, simulation of the complex was done using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for 100 ns and binding energy determination using MM/PBSA analysis. For checking the mechanical stability of the protein-peptide complexes...

A robust genome and assembly with transcriptomic data from the striped scorpion, Centruroides vittatus.

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 Photo Credit: By Charles &amp; Clint - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1825869


A robust genome and assembly with transcriptomic data from the striped scorpion, Centruroides vittatus. 

Abstract

Scorpions, a seemingly primitive, stinging arthropod taxa, are known to exhibit marked diversity in their venom components. These venoms are known for their human pathology, but also important as models for therapeutic and drug development applications. We report a high quality genome assembly and annotation of the striped bark scorpion, Centruroides vittatus, created with several shotgun libraries. The final assembly is 760 Mb in size, with a BUSCO score of 97.8%, a 30.85% GC, and a N50 of 2.35 Mb. We estimated 36,189 proteins with 37.32% assigned to GO terms in our GOanna analysis. We were able to map 2011 and 60 venom toxin genes to contigs and scaffolds, respectively. We were also able to identify expression differences between venom gland (telson) and body tissue (carapace) with 19 Sodium toxin and 14 Potassium toxin genes to 18 contigs and two scaffolds. This assembly along with our transcriptomic data, provides further data to investigate scorpion venom genomics.

A robust genome and assembly with transcriptomic data from the striped scorpion, Centruroides vittatus
Tsunemi Yamashita, Douglas D. Rhoads, Jeff Pummill
bioRxiv 2023.08.04.551372; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.04.551372
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review