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eceptor antagonists may serve medicinal chemists in novel drug design or be used as drugcandidates themselves [1].Bee, wasp and ant venoms are available in a relatively limited number of species(except for social honeybees). The venom analyses of a few specimens of the solitary beeOsmia rufa by LC-ESI-MS and nanoESI-MS showed more than 50 different compoundswith molecular masses ranging from 400 to 4000 Da [2]. The major component, at 1924.20Da, was revealed after sequencing by de novo MS/MS and Edman degradation to be a17-residue cysteine-free peptide, named osmin. Preliminary assays showed that osmininhibits bacterial and fungal growth at micromolar concentrations and 3D models withalpha-helical structure showed an amphipathic pattern typical of antimicrobial peptides(AMPs) [2].Bradykinin-potentiating peptides (BPPs) are angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitorsidentified in several species. Originally discovered in the ’60s, they led to the developmentof Captopril, a drug to treat hypertension. The characteristic structural features areinvariable N-terminal pyroglutamate residues and two consecutive C-terminal prolineresidues. The development and validation of original methodology for high throughputdiscovery of BPPs in venoms combined to LC-ESI-MS/MS in precursor ion scan mode, 20BPP-like sequences were discovered in venom of Bothrops moojeni snake [3].Finally, the genome, venom transcriptome and proteome of Conus consors (Figure 2)are currently exhaustively studied. Identification, characterisation and synthesis of novelbioactive compounds are investigated [4]. After high throughput bioactivity screening,selected peptides are further characterised in vivo and their potential as novelbiopharmaceutical drug candidates is evaluated. Additionally, the biodiversity, ecology andmolecular evolution of a wide range of venomous gastropod species are studied.We believe that our unique techniques, combining mass spectrometry to in silico dataand text mining strategies, are a straightforward discovery approach for novel biomoleculesfrom animal venoms and other natural sources.Fig. 2. HPLC UV of milked venom (MV) and dissected venom (DV) of Conus consors conesnail (bottom figure).AcknowledgmentsCONCO, the cone snail genome project for health, is funded by the European Commission:LIFESCIHEALTH-6 Integrated Project LSHB-CT-2007-037592. We are grateful to the governmentsof New Caledonia and French Polynesia.References1. Hayashi, et al. Peptides 25(8), 1243-1251 (2004).2. Stöcklin, et al. Toxicon. 55(1), 20-27 (2010).3. Menin, et al. Toxicon. 51(7), 1288-1302 (2008).4. Biass, et al. J. Proteomics 72(2), 210-218 (2009).561