Identification and Synthesis of Immunogenic Peptides to Produce Tityus Antivenom

JA RODRIGUEZ; GR BARREDO VACCHELLI; LC IGLESIAS GARCÍA; ACOSTA, GERARDO; F.ALBERICIO; SA CAMPERI

Proceedings of the 36th European and the 12th International Peptide Symposium

EPS

Año: 2022; p. 43 - 44

Several endemic scorpions belonging to the genus Tityus sp. can cause envenoming in humans inArgentina. The administered antivenoms used for accidental scorpion stinging treatments is produced by immunizing horses repeatedly with captured arachnid venoms extracted by electrostimulation of their telson. This classical antiserum production used since its description by Césaire Auguste Phisalix and Albert Calmette in 1894, depends on an extremely dangerous and low-yielding venom harvest, hampering national demands met. Furthermore, due to the high content of horse proteins injected, adverse reactions such as serum sickness has been reported. Tityus trivittatus is one of the main scorpions of medical importance in South America. Betamammal Tt1g neurotoxin, a Cys-rich peptide, has been described as the responsible for the intoxication symptoms caused by its sting to humans. Tt1g, as well as others Cys-rich peptides usually found in arachnids, has low immunogenicity because, its high stability and its digestion is difficult in antigenpresenting cells, a key step to trigger the adaptive immune response.In this work, the epitopes from Tt1g were identified, and immunogenic peptides were designedand chemically synthesized to supplant and/or improve the traditional method of obtaining scorpion venom currently used in South America.