Iara Aimê Cardoso, a Research Assistant at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, presented a poster at the 10th International Toxinology Meeting – Venoms & Toxins 2023 (Oxford, 22-24 August 2023) about some of the ADDovenom team’s research.
Iara’s poster, Mapping the post-synaptic neurotoxic profile of mamba venoms by functional and ligand binding assays, was based on research co-produced with Mark C. Wilkinson, Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel, Rohit N. Patel, Nicholas R. Casewell, Stefanie K. Menzies.
The research focused on snakes from the genus Dendroaspis (mambas), as mamba envenoming is:
[…] one of the most severe cases of snakebite, causing progressive descending paralysis and respiratory failure, which may become lethal. Their venom contains several neurotoxins, including toxins of the three-finger toxin (3FTx) family, which possess diverse biological functions, including the blockage of muscular nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) located on the post-synaptic membranes of neuromuscular junctions (these 3FTxs are known as long or short chain α-neurotoxins).
[The research] characterises the post-synaptic neurotoxic effects of venoms from five mamba species from sub-Saharan Africa
[The] results will provide useful information about mamba venom composition and highlight the post-synaptic antagonist potential of their α-neurotoxins”.
Another LSTM Research Assistant who contributes to ADDovenom, Camille Abada, also displayed a poster at this conference: Monoclonal antibody discovery for snake venom toxins using yeast surface display.
