Toxinology in the proteomics era: a review on arachnid venom proteomics

Abstract

The word venomics was coined to acknowledge the studies that use omics to investigate venom proteins and peptides. Venomics has evolved considerably over the last 20 years. The first works on scorpion or spider venomics were published in the early 2000's. Such studies relied on peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) to characterize venom complexity. After the introduction of new mass spectrometers with higher resolution, sensitivity and mass accuracy, and the next-generation nucleotide sequencing, the complexity of data reported in research on scorpion and spider venomics increased exponentially, which allowed more comprehensive studies. In the present review article, we covered key publications on scorpion venomics and spider venomics, presenting historical grounds and implemented technologies over the last years. The literature presented in this review was selected after searching the PubMed database using the terms "(scorpion venom) AND (proteome)" for scorpion venomics, and "(spider venom) AND (proteome)" for publications on spider venomics. We presented the key aspects related to proteomics in the covered papers including, but not restricted to, the employed proteomic strategy (i.e., PMF, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, shotgun/bottom-up and/or top-down/ peptidome), and the type of mass spectrometer used. Some conclusions can be drawn from the present study. For example, the scorpion genus Tityus is the most studied concerning venomics, followed by Centruroides; whereas for spiders the studied genera were found more equally distributed. Another interesting conclusion is the lack of high throughput studies on post-translational modifications (PTMs) of scorpion and spider proteins. In our opinion, PTMs should be more studied as they can modulate the activity of scorpion and spider toxins.

Challenges and Opportunities in Clinical Diagnostic Routine of Envenomation Using Blood Plasma Proteomics

“…Studies involving mass spectrometry in toxinology have focused on the study of proteins present in animal venoms, converging on (i) the identification of isolated and purified proteins from venoms [ 72 , 73 , 74 ], (ii) the description of the composition of venoms [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 ], and (iii) the identification of altered biological processes in tissues after tissue damage caused by snake venom [ 41 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 82 , 83 ]. MS can assist in the development and tracking of target toxins and improve the sensitivity and specificity of ELISA and Western blot assays by identifying toxins circulating in the blood of the victims.…”

Snakebite Envenoming: A Comprehensive Review on Epidemiology, Diagnosis, Potential Treatments Role of Proteomics and Bioinformatics

“…Snake toxins' ability to enhance activity, increase resistance to proteases, improve selectivity, and stabilize secondary structural elements has been connected to the stabilization underpinning by the synthesis of disulfide bridges. Snake peptides also vary in the number of disulfide bonds they contain [92].…”