Snake venoms: evolution and medical applications

Informations

Funding country

Netherlands

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

5/12/2019

End date

6/10/2019

Budget

3,000 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

There are several groups in Leiden working on snake venoms, studying their fundamental science and evolution, and their advanced medical applications. The groups include the host Institute for this visitors travel grant: the Institute of Biology, University of Leiden (IBL). Also involved are groups at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), and The Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden. These groups represent an informal consortium that works with national collaborators such as the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), and international collaborators of whom one of the most important is the visitor in this travel grant, Professor R.M. Kini of the Department of Biology, National University of Singapore. Prof. Kini is a world-leading researcher on snake venoms, with special expertise in protein biochemistry. The Leiden snake programme in venom research began in 2005 when Freek Vonk was recruited to the Richardson lab as a masters internship student to study the evolution and development of the snake venom system. Over the years, the snake research in Leiden has led to four publications in Nature, including one News and Views. It is still an extremely active programme and is currently funded by an NWO grant to screen venoms for antibiotics (see 3.1, above). We recently published the first ever genome of a venomous snake in the journal PNAS (USA). Richardson is chair of the scientific committee of the Leiden 2018 congress “Snakebite: From Science to Society” funded by €100k grant to Naturalis from the Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken and €10k from Leiden University Research & Innovation Services (LURIS). The current application for a visitors travel grant for Professor Kini is a sub-project within the broader Leiden research programme on venoms. It concerns the question of how some animals have evolved resistance to snake venom. A few species are known to have molecular adaptations in toxin receptors. These adaptations lead to changes in the protein that prevent one or more snake toxins from binding. The animals that possess these changes can happily attack and eat snakes without suffering any ill-effects if they are bitten. They may also be protected against snakes that might prey on them. This is a fascinating case-study in evolution, where animals evolve potent toxins, and their victims evolve resistance (a so-called evolutionary arms race). Studying venom resistance genes may also have potential medical and societal implications. Many tens of thousands of people — including agricultural workers and other people in rural areas who cannot access antivenoms quickly — are killed or seriously injured per year in tropical countries from snake envenomation. When the money-earner in a family is killed or injured by a snakebite, the entire family may suffer severely; a single snake bite can therefore have a huge societal impact. And so, understanding the interaction of toxins with their receptors is one essential step in devising strategies for treating snake bites.