Editorial: Structural and functional venomics as a powerful approach for drug discovery and development
The diversity of terrestrial and marine venomous creatures is extremely high with more than 200,000 species spread throughout the Animal Kingdom, including vertebrate animals (reptiles and fishes) and invertebrate animals (marine cone snails, octopi, leeches, myriapods, insects and arachnids). Venomous animals have a specialized tissue or organ called the “venom gland” in which their venoms are produced/stored and introduced into the prey by a specialized delivery apparatus such as a fang, stinger, teeth, or harpoon. Animal venoms are very complicated and often deadly cocktails, which contain unique mixtures of toxins (mainly peptides and proteins) targeting vital systems of the victim or prey. For their high degree of specificity and potency, venom peptides have been used as good templates to develop various venom-derived drugs such as Captopril, Ziconotide, and Exenatide for treating hypertension, chronic pain, and type-2 diabetes, respectively. Also, the scorpion venom peptide chlorotoxin (ClTx) is a useful tumor imaging agent and radiolabelled ClTx has undergone clinical trials for targeted glioma radiotherapy.
Abdel-Rahman Mohamed A. , Cao Zhijian , Abd El-Aziz Tarek Mohamed , Strong Peter N. , Sabatier Jean-Marc, Editorial: Structural and functional venomics as a powerful approach for drug discovery and development, Frontiers in Pharmacology, VOLUME 15, 2024
10.3389/fphar.2024.1405681, ISSN 1663-9812
