Journal article
Causes and Consequences of Snake Venom Variation
NR Casewell, TNW Jackson, AH Laustsen, K Sunagar
Trends in Pharmacological Sciences | CELL PRESS | Published : 2020
Open access
Abstract
Snake venoms are mixtures of toxins that vary extensively between and within snake species. This variability has serious consequences for the management of the world's 1.8 million annual snakebite victims. Advances in ‘omic’ technologies have empowered toxinologists to comprehensively characterize snake venom compositions, unravel the molecular mechanisms that underpin venom variation, and elucidate the ensuing functional consequences. In this review, we describe how such mechanistic processes have resulted in suites of toxin isoforms that cause diverse pathologies in human snakebite victims and we detail how variation in venom composition can result in treatment failure. Finally, we outline..
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Grants
Awarded by Department for International Development, UK Government
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Tulika for the creation of Figure 3. N.R.C. acknowledges funding support from the UK Department for International Development, a UK Medical Research Council grant (MR/S00016X/1), and a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship (200517/Z/16/Z) jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society. T.N.W.J. acknowledges funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (grant agreement 13/093/001). A.H.L. acknowledges funding support from the Villum Foundation (Grant No. 00025302) and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 850974). K.S. acknowledges funding from the UK Department for International Development, the DBT-IISc Partnership Program, DST-INSPIRE Faculty Award (DST/INSPIRE/04/2017/000071), and DST-FIST (SR/FST/LS-II/2018/233).