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Harvesting Venom Toxins from Assassin Bugs and Other Heteropteran Insects
Published on: April 21, 2018
Pharmacological comparison of two different insect models using the scorpion alpha-like toxin BmK M1 from Buthus
Frank Bosmans1, Bert Brône, Yan-Mei Sun
1Laboratory of Toxicology, University of Leuven, Belgium.
Abstract:
In this study, the effect of the scorpion alpha-like toxin BmK M1 was investigated on isolated DUM neurons from Locusta migratoria and compared with the effect on para/tipE voltage-gated Na(+) channels (VGSC), cloned from Drosophila melanogaster. The two insects display different pharmacological properties regarding alpha-like toxins. Moreover, with the aid of the alpha-like toxin BmK M1 and 5 of its mutants, the importance of aromatic residues for the interaction of the toxin with the VGSC in L. migratoria and D. melanogaster, is shown.
