Biomedicines, 2023, 11(4):1115

The Potassium Channel Blocker β-Bungarotoxin from the Krait Bungarus multicinctus Venom Manifests Antiprotozoal Activity

Protozoal infections are a world-wide problem. The toxicity and somewhat low effectiveness of the existing drugs require the search for new ways of protozoa suppression. Snake venom contains structurally diverse components manifesting antiprotozoal activity; for example, those in cobra venom are cytotoxins. In this work, we aimed to characterize a novel antiprotozoal component(s) in the krait venom using the ciliate as a model organism. To determine the toxicity of the substances under study, surviving ciliates were registered automatically by an original BioLaT-3.2 instrument. The krait venom was separated by three-step liquid chromatography and the toxicity of the obtained fractions against was analyzed. As a result, 21 kDa protein toxic to was isolated and its amino acid sequence was determined by MALDI TOF MS and high-resolution mass spectrometry. It was found that antiprotozoal activity was manifested by β-bungarotoxin (β-Bgt) differing from the known toxins by two amino acid residues. Inactivation of β-Bgt phospholipolytic activity with -bromophenacyl bromide did not change its antiprotozoal activity. Thus, this is the first demonstration of the antiprotozoal activity of β-Bgt, which is shown to be independent of its phospholipolytic activity.

Osipov AV, Cheremnykh EG, Ziganshin RH, Starkov VG, Nguyen TTT, Nguyen KC, Le DT, Hoang AN, Tsetlin VI, Utkin YN

IBCH: 10663
Ссылка на статью в журнале: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9059/11/4/1115
Кол-во цитирований на 05.2026: 3
Данные статьи проверены модераторами 2023-05-25

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