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...

Enlighting the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes (Preprint)

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Enlighting the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes 


Abstract


Spiders produce highly adapted venoms featuring a complex mixture of biomolecules used mainly for hunting and defense. The most prominent components are peptidic neurotoxins, which have been the focus of research and drug development, whereas venom enzymes have been largely neglected. Nevertheless, investigation of venom enzymes not only reveals insights into their biological functions, but also provides templates for future industrial applications. Here we compared spider venom enzymes contained in the VenomZone database and in other publicly available proteo-transcriptomic datasets. We found extensive discrepancies between these sources, revealing a previously unrecognized abundance and diversity of venom enzymes. Furthermore, we assigned the reported enzymes to cellular processes and known venom functions, including toxicity, prey pre-digestion, venom preservation, venom component activation, and venom spreading factors. Our study reveals a gap between databases and publications in terms of enzyme coverage which impedes development of new applications based on the rich and diverse spectrum of enzymes contained in spider venom.

Enlighting the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes Josephine Dresler, Volker Herzig, Andreas Vilcinskas, Tim Lueddecke bioRxiv 2024.02.27.582330; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.27.582330