Hydrophobic Interaction Chromatography Coupled to High-Throughput Venomics for Snake Venom Characterisation with Parallel Bioactivity Assessment

Posted by
  Hydrophobic Interaction Chromatography Coupled to High-Throughput Venomics for Snake Venom Characterisation with Parallel Bioactivity Assessment Abstract Between 80,000 and 140,000 fatalities occur yearly because of snakebite envenoming, which causes it to be classified as a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD), stressing the importance of snake venom toxin characterisation to aid the development of next-generation antivenoms. Snake venom is made up of a mixture of bioactive proteins that are also known as venom toxins. These venom toxins, being complex and structurally diverse, present a significant challenge for analytical separation and functional characterisation. Traditional methods, such as reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC), often involve denaturing conditions that can alter the native state of these proteins, potentially reducing their bioactivity and limiting subsequent bioassays. Therefore, this study developed and optimised an analytical methodology using non-dena...

What's for dinner? Prey consumption by Neotropical scorpions across contrasting environments

Posted by

 


What's for dinner? Prey consumption by Neotropical scorpions across contrasting environments

Abstract

The overall assumption that scorpions are generalist predators is often based on conspicuous information from the literature. Here, we compiled a list of prey consumption by scorpions from different environments in Brazil to produce a documentation of predations by this taxon. This list is based on observations made under natural conditions in Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, and Cerrado formations. We compiled 135 predation instances including 11 scorpion species from field work through 14 years. The observed diet composition of the scorpions was mainly based on cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers, spiders, and other scorpions. Such data highlights the generalist diet and cannibalism of scorpions with many cannibalistic events among the records of intraguild predation. Overall, this study broadens the knowledge of the diet composition of Brazilian scorpions under natural conditions.

W. Dionisio-da-Silva, S.Í.A. Foerster, J.E. Gallão, A.F.A. Lira "What's for dinner? Prey consumption by Neotropical scorpions across contrasting environments," The Journal of Arachnology, 52(1), 26-30, (8 April 2024)