An impressive discovery in the field of neutralizing the venoms of venomous snakes was made by a group of scientists from the United States, India and Great Britain. Researchers are focused on developing a universal antivenom that can combat the most deadly components of snake venoms.

Snake venoms are complex mixtures of proteins and peptides with diverse structures, functions, and biological targets. Some are aimed at destroying the nervous system, others cause bleeding, thrombosis, or promote the digestive action in the stomach of a predator. Each species of snake has a unique secretion composition based on enzymes from numerous chemical families.

The scientists focused on neutralizing the “three-fingered” alpha neurotoxins found in slate snakes such as mambas and cobras. These toxins block nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in muscle cells, causing paralysis and suffocation. The researchers analyzed long alpha neurotoxin data from a database and selected several human antibodies that recognized a common region. The most effective antibody was 95Mat5, which successfully neutralized the venoms of Asian and African snakes in experiments on mice.

In the future, scientists plan to find antibodies against other main components of venoms, such as short alpha neurotoxins, phospholipases, metalloproteinases and serine proteases. A universal antidote will contain four to five antibodies that are effective against the most dangerous types of toxins. In addition, a variety of monoclonal antibodies can be added to the “cocktail”, targeting the venoms of specific snakes living in certain regions.