Snake venom could be used to treat cancer, diabetes

زائر

Snakes are able to convert their venom back into harmless molecules that scientists say could help find a cancer cure.

A joint British-Australian study of venom and tissue gene sequences
in snakes showed that venom not only evolved from regular cells but
could be turned back into harmless proteins.

Gavin Huttley, from the Australian team, said it was the first time
snakes' venom had been shown to evolve back into regular tissues and was
a significant finding for the development of drugs for conditions like
cancer or diabetes.

Snake venom typically targets the same physiological pathways as many
human diseases and Huttley said understanding how the venom molecule
changed form could help scientists develop new drug cures.

Some snake venoms, for example, cause the cells that line blood
vessels to separate and die, including the kinds that feed cancerous
tumors, and Huttley said mapping how that worked could lead to more
effective cancer treatments.

"It highlights that venom molecules, these things that actually kill
us, in fact are just derivatives of normal proteins," said Huttley, from
the Australian National University.

"By studying the molecular events you get an idea about what it takes
to make a protein to target those specific physiological functions," he
said.

Huttley described a snake's venom gland as "like a small drug
company, running huge numbers of experiments on evolutionary timescales
with new molecules and seeing what works".

The scientists had essentially "piggybacked" on the snake's internal
research to try and map the amino acid changes involved in the evolution
of regular cells into venom and back again, he said.

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