Toxicon, 2008, 51(4):524-537

Heterodimeric neurotoxic phospholipases A2-The first proteins from venom of recently established species Vipera nikolskii: Implication of venom composition in viper systematics

For the first time the venom of recently established viper species Vipera nikolskii was fractionated and two heterodimeric phospholipases A2(HDP-1 and HDP-2) were isolated. Isolation of HDP-1 and HDP-2 is the first indication of the presence of two heterodimeric phospholipases A2in the venom of one viper species. When tested on the frog neuromuscular junction, isolated proteins affected neuromuscular transmission acting presynaptically. Using RP-HPLC, each heterodimer was separated into two monomeric subunits: basic phospholipase A2(HDP-1P and HDP-2P) and acidic component without enzymatic activity (HDP-In). The complete primary structures of subunits were deduced from corresponding sequences of cDNAs. The determined amino acid sequences were homologous to those of vipoxin from Vipera ammodytes and vaspin from Vipera aspis. Similar proteins were not found earlier in the well-studied venom of Vipera berus, the species from which V. nikolskii was recently separated. Our finding supports at the biochemical level the correctness of the establishment of V. nikolskii as an independent species. The finding of similar proteins (HDPs and vipoxin) in geographically remote species (V. nikolskii and V. ammodytes) corroborates the hypothesis about the pre-existence of genes encoding these proteins in all true viper species and their expression under certain conditions. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ramazanova AS, Zavada LL, Starkov VG, Kovyazina IV, Subbotina TF, Kostyukhina EE, Dementieva IN, Ovchinnikova TV, Utkin YN

IBCH: 799
Ссылка на статью в журнале: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0041010107003959
Кол-во цитирований на 11.2023: 25
Информация пока не проверена модераторами