Sentences with phrase «venom toxins in»

Now, researchers report that they have devised nanoparticles that sop up a variety of common venom toxins in test tube studies, a key stride in coming up with the first ever broad - spectrum snake antivenom.

Not exact matches

«For the longest time it was thought that only spitting cobras had these defensive toxins in high amounts in their venoms, however we've shown that they are widespread in cobras.

A newly identified toxin in the venom of a tropical centipede helps the arthropod to overpower giant prey in about 30 seconds.

These adaptations include the massive and rapid expansion of gene families that produce venom toxins, providing the snake with a highly toxic protein mixture required to overcome a variety of different prey and also circumvent any resistance to venom that may have developed in such prey.

Venom from an eastern diamondback rattlesnake in the Everglades is distinct from the cocktail of toxins delivered by the same species in the Florida panhandle area, some 500 miles away.

The diversification of these toxins correlates directly with their functional importance in prey capture, for example the most pathogenic king cobra toxin family have undergone massive expansion, while, in contrast, venom proteins with less important functions do not participate in the evolutionary arms race occurring between snakes and their prey.

Armed with the both the king cobra and Burmese python genome the team was able to show that, despite previous hypotheses that venom genes evolve «early» in the lineage leading to snakes, venom gene families do not duplicate early, in fact the study shows that the rapid and extensive expansion of functionally important venom toxin families is restricted to the venomous «advanced» snake lineage.

Ken Shea and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, used melittin, the toxin in bee venom, as the antigen (the substance triggering an immune reaction).

Shea notes that although he and his colleagues have yet to finalize their measurements on how well their nanoparticles bind to various PLA2 molecules, their test - tube results suggest that they could have a similar high affinity for PLA2s as their previous nanoparticles had for melittin, the bee venom protein that stopped the toxin in animal studies.

The crustacean venom also contains a toxin that is nearly identical to a paralysis - inducing neurotoxin first described in spiders in 2010.

According to Drs. Moran and Sunagar, «The «two - speed» mode of evolution of animal venoms involves an initial period of expansion, resulting in the rapid diversification of the venom arsenal, followed by longer periods of purifying selection that preserve the now potent toxin pharmacopeia.

Claudio Vita and his colleagues at the protein engineering department of CEA, the French nuclear research agency in Gif - sur - Yvette, are using the toxins found in scorpion venom as a chemical scaffold to build novel proteins for use as drugs (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 92, p 6404).

Yet when Casewell, Fry and colleagues put together an evolutionary family tree for the blennies, the one genus with both fangs and venom branched off amid four genera that are all fang and no toxins, Casewell, Fry and colleagues report in the April 24 Current Biology.

But the findings suggest that the wasps don't need mutations in the venom toxin genes to switch from one host to another, or to keep pace with their current hosts.

«These findings raise important questions relating to the processes that other venomous animals may have used to generate their venom toxins,» wroteNicholas Casewell, senior lecturer and Wellcome Trust research fellow with the Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in a summary dispatch published alongside the Current Biology pvenom toxins,» wroteNicholas Casewell, senior lecturer and Wellcome Trust research fellow with the Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in a summary dispatch published alongside the Current Biology pVenom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in a summary dispatch published alongside the Current Biology paper.

Harvesting venom is easier when working with large spiders, which secrete the toxin — then collected noninvasively with a pipette — in sufficient amounts for researchers to analyze and test.

A new study by Rice University biophysicists offers the most comprehensive picture yet of the molecular - level action of melittin, the principal toxin in bee venom.

«Bee venom: Biophysicists zoom in on pore - forming toxin.»

The insulin genes were more highly expressed in the venom gland than genes for some of the established venom toxins.