Fox Jay W, Serrano Solange M T
Department of Microbiology, Health Sciences Center, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908-0734, USA.
Toxicon. 2005 Jun 15;45(8):969-85. doi: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2005.02.012. Epub 2005 Apr 9.
The importance of proteinases in the pathologies associated with Viperid envenoming has long been appreciated. Over the past 40 years substantial research has clearly implicated metalloproteinases in the venom (snake venom metalloproteinases; SVMPs) as playing key roles in the development of such symptoms as hemorrhage, edema, hypotension, hypovolemia, inflammation and necrosis. In spite of this wealth of information there are still many unresolved questions pertaining to the structural basis for the various SVMPS giving rise to the diversity of activities. In this short review we will not attempt to provide an exhaustive collation of structural studies on the SVMPs; however, we will give a brief outline of the structural classification of the SVMPs; as well as relate them to the other members of the reprolysin family of metalloproteinases, the ADAMs. The information put forth in the text does not allow specific conclusions to be drawn on the structural basis for SVMP functional diversity, but it is our goal that it will allow for the development of testable hypotheses that can be experimentally pursued. What the reader will observe is that there are very interesting structural features displayed by the various SVMP classes and subclasses that provide insight into their functional characteristics.
蛋白酶在与蝰蛇科蛇毒中毒相关的病理学中的重要性早已为人所知。在过去40年里，大量研究明确表明毒液中的金属蛋白酶（蛇毒金属蛋白酶；SVMPs）在诸如出血、水肿、低血压、血容量减少、炎症和坏死等症状的发展中起关键作用。尽管有如此丰富的信息，但关于各种SVMPs产生多种活性的结构基础仍有许多未解决的问题。在这篇简短的综述中，我们不会试图详尽整理关于SVMPs的结构研究；然而，我们将简要概述SVMPs的结构分类；并将它们与金属蛋白酶解整合素家族的其他成员——解整合素和金属蛋白酶（ADAMs）联系起来。文中提供的信息不允许基于SVMP功能多样性的结构基础得出具体结论，但我们的目标是它将有助于提出可通过实验进行探究的可检验假设。读者将会观察到，各种SVMP类别和亚类展现出非常有趣的结构特征，这些特征有助于深入了解它们的功能特性。
