Bringans Scott, Eriksen Soren, Kendrick Tulene, Gopalakrishnakone P, Livk Andreja, Lock Robert, Lipscombe Richard
Proteomics International, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Proteomics. 2008 Mar;8(5):1081-96. doi: 10.1002/pmic.200700948.
Venoms have evolved over millions of years into potent cocktails of bioactive peptides and proteins. These compounds can be of great value to the pharmaceutical industry for numerous clinical applications. In this study, a novel proteomic - bioinformatic approach was utilised, where chromatography followed by gel electrophoresis was utilised to separate the venom peptides/proteins of Heterometrus longimanus (Asian black scorpion). Purified peptides were analysed by tandem mass spectrometry, de novo sequenced and then homology matched against known peptides in the Swiss-Prot protein database. Numerous potentially biologically active peptide matches were discovered, and a simple scoring system applied to putatively assign functions to the peptides. As a validation of this approach, the functional composition of the experimentally derived proteome is similar to that of other scorpions, and contains a potent mix of toxins, antimicrobials and ionic channel inhibitors.
毒液历经数百万年进化成了由生物活性肽和蛋白质构成的强效混合物。这些化合物对制药行业在众多临床应用中具有巨大价值。在本研究中，采用了一种新颖的蛋白质组学 - 生物信息学方法，即先通过色谱法再利用凝胶电泳来分离长爪异距蝎（亚洲黑蝎）的毒液肽/蛋白质。对纯化后的肽进行串联质谱分析、从头测序，然后与瑞士蛋白质数据库中的已知肽进行同源匹配。发现了众多潜在的生物活性肽匹配物，并应用了一个简单的评分系统来推定肽的功能。作为对该方法的验证，实验得出的蛋白质组的功能组成与其他蝎子的相似，且包含毒素、抗菌剂和离子通道抑制剂的强效混合物。
