Quantifying the venom dose of the spider Cupiennius salei using monoclonal antibodies

Malli, Heinz; Imboden, Hans; Kuhn‐Nentwig, Lucia

doi:10.1016/s0041-0101(98)00120-2

Cited by 35 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…The spider also loses its venom investment and reduces its chance of successfully subduing a subsequent prey item, because its venom storage is limited, regeneration takes Ϸ16 days (4), and its production involves high metabolic costs. Behavioral, ecological, and biochemical investigations of the venom economy of C. salei indicate that it alters the amount of venom injected according to the size, mobility, and defense behavior of its prey (5)(6)(7)(8).…”

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confidence: 99%

CSTX-13, a highly synergistically acting two-chain neurotoxic enhancer in the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei(Ctenidae)

Wullschleger

Kuhn‐Nentwig

Tromp

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The survival of the spider Cupiennius salei depends on its hunting success, which largely relies on its immediately paralyzing multicomponent venom. Here, we report on the isolation and characterization of CSTX-13, a neurotoxic enhancer in the spider venom. De novo elucidation of the disulfide bridge pattern of CSTX-13 and the neurotoxin CSTX-1 by tandem MS revealed an identical arrangement. However, in contrast to CSTX-1, CSTX-13 is a two-chain peptide with two interchain and two intrachain disulfide bridges. Furthermore, the insecticidal activity of CSTX-13 is synergistically increased in the presence of K ؉ ions as well as of the cytolytic peptide cupiennin 1a. We demonstrated that the weakly neurotoxic CSTX-13 enhances the paralytic activity of the neurotoxin CSTX-1 by 65% when it is administered with the latter at its entirely nontoxic physiological concentration, which is 440 times below its LD50 concentration.

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confidence: 99%

CSTX-13, a highly synergistically acting two-chain neurotoxic enhancer in the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei(Ctenidae)

Wullschleger

Kuhn‐Nentwig

Tromp

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Nevertheless, data on other aspects of venom regeneration suggest that spiders incur an ecological cost for venom expenditure. Because venom regeneration may take weeks (Boeve et al 1995;Perret 1977b) to months (Freyvogel et al 1968), and spiders may capture several prey items per day, spiders should modulate venom release to avoid the metabolic expense of regenerating depleted reserves, which could leave the spider vulnerable to predators or unable to deal with subsequent prey (Boeve and Meier 1994;Malli et al 1998). The secondary loss of venom in uloborid spiders, which kill their prey instead by wrapping them tightly in hackled silk, further suggests that venom use comes with a considerable biochemical price (Morgenstern and King 2013).…”

Section: Cost Of Venom In Spidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beyond the metabolic cost of generating venom, there are ecological costs to venom use as well. These include unnecessary or excessive discharge that can temporarily impair an organism's ability to defend itself or take advantage of future opportunities to procure prey (Hayes 2008;Malli et al 1998). Venom use is also associated with serious risk of bodily injury, and possibly death, as envenomation requires direct physical contact that can lead to retaliation (Schmidt 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of predation, subthreshold stimuli arising from relatively small, harmless, or unresponsive prey may result in prey capture and consumption without envenomation (Hayes et al 2002;Malli et al 1998;Wigger et al 2002). For defense, subthreshold stimuli may evoke alternate presumably less costly behaviors, including fleeing (Gibbons and Dorcas 2002;Nelsen et al 2014a), leg autotomy (Nelsen et al 2014a), threat displays (Gibbons and Dorcas 2002), retaliatory pinching/biting (Heatwole 1967;Schmidt 1990), sham strikes (Hayes 2008), and dry bites or stings (Herzig 2010;Morgenstern and King 2013;Nisani and Hayes 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scorpions also possess venom heterogeneity, but venom composition during successive stings covaries with quantity of venom (Nisani and Hayes 2011). Finally, venomous animals may strategically target their venom by aiming it in the direction of an intended victim, or even delivering it to a particularly vulnerable body part (Libersat and Gal 2014;Malli et al 1998Malli et al , 1999. This targeting can potentially reduce the quantity of venom used, particularly for predation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

Cooper¹,

Nelsen²,

Hayes³

2015

Evolution of Venomous Animals and Their Toxins

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Understanding the behaviors by which animals deploy their venoms has been largely neglected compared to other aspects of the evolution and biology of venomous organisms and their venoms. Yet, behavior has long been recognized as a pacemaker for the evolution of morphological, ecological, life history, and other traits, in large part because behavioral responses can expose organisms to or protect them from novel selection pressures. The importance of behavior is especially evident in that venom most often functions through a behavioral act that generates a wound in a target animal through which the toxic secretion must be introduced. As a limited and costly commodity, venom should be deployed strategically and judiciously by those animals that possess it. The chapter summarizes the major aspects of adaptive venom use in animals, and highlights the best documented examples of strategic venom deployment among spiders. These animals, like other venomous taxa, exhibit four major behavioral strategies. First, they are often highly selective when using their venom, discharging it only under certain conditions. Second, they can modulate the quantity of venom they expend in both predatory and defensive contexts, delivering multiple bites or variable quantities within individual doses. Third, at least one study suggests that spiders possess venom gland heterogeneity and therefore deliver varying venom composition with successive venom expulsions. Finally, some evidence suggests that spiders can strategically target the delivery of their weapon at a particularly vulnerable region of their target. Collectively, the evidence suggests a common theme among spiders and other venomous animals for economization and optimization of venom deployment.

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A lysine rich C-terminal tail is directly involved in the toxicity of CSTX-1, a neurotoxic peptide from the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei

Kuhn‐Nentwig

Schaller

Kämpfer

et al. 2000

Arch. Insect Biochem. Physiol.

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CSTX-1 (74 amino acids, 8,352.62 Da) is a potent neurotoxin from the venom of Cupiennius salei. With the monoclonal antibody 9H3 against CSTX-1, we identified two similar peptides by Western blot analysis. These two peptides were purified by RP-HPLC: CSTX-2a (61 amino acids, 6865.75 Da) and CSTX-2b (60 amino acids, 6709.57 Da). Using ESI-MS analysis and sequencing we verified that CSTX-2a is a truncated version of CSTX-1. CSTX-2b differs from CSTX-2a by the absence of Arg61. Toxicity of CSTX-1, CSTX-2a, and CSTX-2b to Drosophila melanogaster showed that the absence of the last 13 amino acids of CSTX-1 results in a seven-fold activity loss. CSTX-2b, which lacks Arg61 is 190-fold less toxic. We conclude that the C-terminal part of CSTX-1, especially Arg61, is essential for the expression of toxicity. CSTX-1 is degraded to CSTX-2a and CSTX-2b by proteases that are released from venom gland cells by apocrine secretion.

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Quantifying the venom dose of the spider Cupiennius salei using monoclonal antibodies

Cited by 35 publications

References 22 publications

CSTX-13, a highly synergistically acting two-chain neurotoxic enhancer in the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei(Ctenidae)

CSTX-13, a highly synergistically acting two-chain neurotoxic enhancer in the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei(Ctenidae)

The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

A lysine rich C-terminal tail is directly involved in the toxicity of CSTX-1, a neurotoxic peptide from the venom of the spiderCupiennius salei

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