Publication Date:
1990-07-20
Description:
Conus venoms contain a remarkable diversity of pharmacologically active small peptides. Their targets are ion channels and receptors in the neuromuscular system. The venom of Conus geographus contains high-affinity peptides that act on voltage-sensitive calcium channels, sodium channels, N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, acetylcholine receptors, and vasopressin receptors; many more peptides with still uncharacterized receptor targets are present in this venom. It now seems that the Conus species (approximately 500 in number) will each use a distinctive assortment of peptides and that the pharmacological diversity in Conus venoms may be ultimately comparable to that of plant alkaloids or secondary metabolites of microorganisms. The cone snails may generate this diverse spectrum of venom peptides by a "fold-lock-cut" synthetic pathway. These peptides are specific enough to discriminate effectively between closely related receptor subtypes and can be used for structure-function correlations.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Olivera, B M -- Rivier, J -- Clark, C -- Ramilo, C A -- Corpuz, G P -- Abogadie, F C -- Mena, E E -- Woodward, S R -- Hillyard, D R -- Cruz, L J -- GM 22737/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1990 Jul 20;249(4966):257-63.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2165278" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Animals
;
Mice
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Mollusk Venoms/*genetics/isolation & purification/toxicity
;
Neuropeptides/*genetics
;
Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate
;
Receptors, Neurotransmitter/drug effects
;
Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
;
Sleep/drug effects
;
Snails/*physiology
;
Species Specificity
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
