Poisonous snakes are animals that effectively use their venom for capturing and digesting their prey. The complex nature of venom serves the snake well in this regard; however, envenomation of humans creates medical emergencies. Venom is difficult to neutralize because of its complex nature, and most medical practitioners would agree that better antivenom need to be developed. Snake venoms have many toxins and enzymes which destroy tissue rapidly. Any effective treatment requires that the major lethal components of venom be neutralized. A far more important reason for venom isolation and characterization is the selective destruction of tumors. Snake toxins could be used as an alternative form of antitumor therapy. With the developments of tumor-specific antibodies, immunotoxins are being developed with plant and bacterial toxins which have antitumor activity. The construction of immunotoxins with snake venoms depends on the isolation, and characterization of toxins found in venoms. Venoms are excellent venom is extremely complex. The goals of the proposed research are (a) to isolate and characterize venom toxins, (b) to establish HPLC venom profiles, (c) to compare biological and antigenic activities of venoms, (d) to produce monoclonal antibodies that neutralize major lethal components found in various snake venoms, (e) and to conjugate purified venom toxins to tumor specific monoclonal antibodies. To purified by various purification procedures as outlined in the method section. To determine purity, electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing, and HPLC techniques will be used. Venom neutralization with monoclonal antibodies will be measured with the antihemorrhagic assay in rabbits and toxicity in mice. The long-range goals will focus on determining the feasibility of conjugating snake toxins to tumor-specific monoclonal antibodies. Students will be involved in all phases of the research, including presentations at professional meetings and publishing in professional journals.
