Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2012

Journal/Book/Conference Title

PLOS ONE

Volume

7

DOI of Original Publication

10.1371/journal.pone.0048112

Comments

Originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048112

Date of Submission

November 2014

Abstract

Snake venoms are rich sources of biologically active proteins and polypeptides. Three-finger toxins are non-enzymatic proteins present in elapid (cobras, kraits, mambas and sea snakes) and colubrid venoms. These proteins contain four conserved disulfide bonds in the core to maintain the three-finger folds. Although all three-finger toxins have similar fold, their biological activities are different. A new three-finger toxin (hemachatoxin) was isolated from Hemachatus haemachatus (Ringhals cobra) venom. Its amino acid sequence was elucidated, and crystal structure was determined at 2.43 Å resolution. The overall fold is similar to other three-finger toxins. The structure and sequence analysis revealed that the fold is maintained by four highly conserved disulfide bonds. It exhibited highest similarity to particularly P-type cardiotoxins that are known to associate and perturb the membrane surface with their lipid binding sites. Also, the increased B value of hemachotoxin loop II suggests that loop II is flexible and may remain flexible until its interaction with membrane phospholipids. Based on the analysis, we predict hemachatoxin to be cardiotoxic/cytotoxic and our future experiments will be directed to characterize the activity of hemachatoxin.

Rights

© 2012 Girish et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Is Part Of

VCU Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Publications

118053.zip (1517 kB)
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