Snake venomics of Crotalus durissus terrificus from Argentina

LUCIANO S. FUSCO; EMIDIO NETO; ALEFF FERREIRA FRANCISCO; LAURA C. LEIVA; DANIEL PIMENTA; ANDREIMAR SOARES

Bueno Aires

Congreso; 20th World Congress of the International Society on Toxinology.; 2019

Envenomation by C.d.terrificus is a relevant public health problem in South America. To date, there are no proteomic studies of C. d.terrificus venom from Argentina, so we here report the venom composition from specimens that inhabit the Northeast Argentina region. The proteins were separated by reverse-phase HPLC and identified by mass spectrometry. C. d.terrifius proteome showed the presence of 10-15 main toxins belonging to the following protein families: disintegrins, PLA2s, serine proteinases, vascular endothelial growth factor-like (VEGF), L-amino acid oxidases, C-type lectins-like and phosphodiesterases. The neurotoxic proteins, crotoxin and crotamine, represent the 74.8 % of proteins of the C.d.terrificus venome. The crotoxin complex was further analyzed and various PLA2 and crotapotine isoforms were observed. The "lethal neurotoxicity coefficient" (LNC: LD50 / neurotoxin concentration) was 1.33 in concordance with a neurotoxic and not hemorrhagic venom, but it is greater than that was reported for C. d.terrificus venom from Brazil (0.96). The major LNC value it would be related to the low content ratio of crotamine (8%) in C.d.terrificus venom from Argentina. These results provide information about C.d.terrificus venom composition from Argentina and they could be considered on defining the mixture of venoms for immunization to produce an effective pan-American anti-Crotalus antivenom.