Wasp Venom Toxins as a Potential Therapeutic Agent

It is high time now to discover novel drugs due to the increasing rate of drug resistance by the pathogen organisms and target cells as well as the dependence or tolerance of the body towards the drug. As it is obvious that significant numbers of the modern day pharmaceuticals are derived from natural products, it is equally astonishing to accept that venoms of various origins have therapeutic potentials. Wasp venoms are also a rich source of therapeutically important toxins which includes short cationic peptides, kinins, polyamines and polyDNA viruses, to name a few indentified. Wasp venom cationic peptides, namely mastoparan and its analogs, show a very important potency as an antimicrobial and anticancer agents of the future. They have proven to be the better candidates due to their lesser toxic effects and higher selectivity upon chemical modification and charge optimization. They also have superiority over the conventional chemical drugs as the target cells very rarely develop resistance against them because these peptides primarily imparts its effect through biophysical interaction with the target cell membrane which is dependent upon the net charge of the peptide, its hydrophobicity and anionicity and fluidity of the target cell membranes. Besides, the other components of wasp venom such as kinins, polyamines and polyDNA viruses show various pharmacological promise in the treatment of pain, inflammatory disease, and neurodegenerative diseases such as epilepsy and aversion.