Overview of Scorpion Species from China and Their Toxins

Abstract

Scorpions are one of the most ancient groups of terrestrial animals. They have maintained a steady morphology over more than 400 million years of evolution. Their venom arsenals for capturing prey and defending against predators may play a critical role in their ancient and conservative appearance. In the current review, we present the scorpion fauna of China: 53 species covering five families and 12 genera. We also systematically list toxins or genes from Chinese scorpion species, involving eight species covering four families. Furthermore, we review the diverse functions of typical toxins from Chinese scorpion species, involving Na+ channel modulators, K+ channel blockers, antimicrobial peptides and protease inhibitors. Using scorpion species and their toxins from China as an example, we build the bridge between scorpion species and their toxins, which helps us to understand the molecular and functional diversity of scorpion venom arsenal, the dynamic and functional evolution of scorpion toxins, and the potential relationships of scorpion species and their toxins.

Designer and natural peptide toxin blockers of the KcsA potassium channel identified by phage display

“…The study of channels without known toxins has sometimes been made possible by pore transplantation (9) or multisite mutations that allow toxin blockade (38), but neither strategy is useful to examine native channels. Although scorpions, spiders, snakes, sea anemones, and cone snail venoms all contain peptides that target ion channels (39)(40)(41), the small amounts of toxins in venom make purification and target identification a challenge.…”

Cytotoxic Effects of Smp24 and Smp43 Scorpion Venom Antimicrobial Peptides on Tumour and Non-tumour Cell Lines

“…Scorpion venoms are cocktails of diverse biologically active compounds (see, inter alia, Rodriguez de la Vega and Possani, 2005;Rodriguez de la Vega et al 2010;Cao et al 2014;Abdel-Rahman et al 2015;Cid-Uribe et al 2018;Kazemi and Sabatier, 2019) and provide a rich source of AMPs (for reviews see Harrison et al 2014;Wang and Wang, 2016;El-Bitar et al 2019). Abdel-Rahman et al (2013) identified two novel amphipathic cationic AMPs (Smp43 and Smp24) through cDNA sequencing of the venom gland of the Egyptian scorpion Scorpio maurus palmatus.…”

Immune drug discovery from venoms

“…In Chinese traditional medicine, venom from the glands of Bufo bufo gargarizans was used for treating infection and inflammation (Meng et al, 2009, Qi et al, 2014 Venom is a complex mixture of peptides, proteins, enzymes, salts, and non-protein constituents. In terms of numbers of species, there are currently 600 leech species (Sket and Trontelj, 2008) , 800 tick species (Cabezas-Cruz and Valdes, 2014) , 3000 snake species (Wagstaff et al, 2006) , 700 cone snail species (Puillandre et al, 2014) , 1100 bat species (Jan et al, 2012) , 2000 scorpion species (Cao et al, 2014) , 10,000 cnidarians species (Cegolon et al, 2013) and 46,000 spider species (World Spider Catalog, 2017) , although not all these species are venomous or dangerous to humans. Other venomous animal include centipedes, scorpions, octopus, sea anemones and fish (Fry et al, 2009) .…”