A Decoy-Receptor Approach Using Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Mimics Reveals Their Potential as Novel Therapeutics Against Neurotoxic Snakebite.

ABSTRACT: Snakebite is a neglected tropical disease that causes 138,000 deaths each year. Neurotoxic snake venoms contain small neurotoxins, including three-finger toxins (3FTxs), which can cause rapid paralysis in snakebite victims by blocking postsynaptic transmission via nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). These toxins are typically weakly immunogenic and thus are often not effectively targeted by current polyclonal antivenom therapies. We investigated whether nAChR mimics, also known as acetylcholine binding proteins (AChBPs), could effectively capture 3FTxs and therefore be developed as a novel class of snake-generic therapeutics for combatting neurotoxic envenoming. First, we identified the binding specificities of 3FTx from various medically important elapid snake venoms to nAC

SUBMITTER: Albulescu LO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6683245 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature