| In 1980, the first modern hypertension drug, sold as Captopril, came on the market. It was made from snake venom, from the same family of South American pit vipers now being re-examined during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The head of the Monash Venom Research Group, Professor Wayne Hodgson, says venom is still an untapped resource. “We still have a poor understanding of the effects of many venoms, including snake venoms, fish venoms, and spider venoms,” he says. “Australia and the Asian region are home to some of the world\'s most venomous animals, so it’s a great opportunity to study these venoms. Not only can we learn about the likely clinical effects of these venoms and identify potential treatment strategies, there are a number of therapeutic agents that have been developed based on venom components.”
Another of his lab members, Ms Rahini Ragavan Kakumanu, a PhD candidate and teaching associate, has two recent papers published, exploring snake venom and its links to both cardiovascular collapse and extreme blood pressure changes in the person “envenomed”.
Ms Kakumanu also studies venom from the vampire bat, a strange nocturnal mammal that feeds only on blood, mainly from livestock. It’s often the creepiest creatures that have the most to offer science.
Who you calling creepy? The vampire bat\'s venom is also being studied.
Professor Hodgson says the link between venoms and cardiovascular collapse was a murky area. “It was unclear whether these snake venoms were capable of causing collapse, or whether they produced different effects on the cardiovascular system which were shorter in duration – that is, transient – and less likely to cause fatalities.
“Previous research has focused heavily on the neurotoxic effects of snake venoms, or the effects of snake venoms on blood coagulation,” he says. “However, there are a number of snakes which cause significant effects on the cardiovascular system, including rapid cardiovascular collapse, which can be fatal.”
"Australia and the Asian region are home to some of the world\'s most venomous animals, so it’s a great opportunity to study these venoms."
Ms Kakumanu looked at seven deadly snakes – the Australian eastern brown, the Sri Lankan Russell’s viper, the Javanese Russell’s viper, the Gaboon viper (Africa), the Uracoan rattlesnake (Venezuela), the carpet viper (Asia and the Middle East), and the puff adder (Morocco and Africa).
“I wanted to see if there is any link between the different types of venoms and cardiovascular effects, or if there’s a particular toxin they all have in common which causes either hypotension [low blood pressure] or hypertension [high blood pressure],” she says.
“I have also investigated the mechanism of cardiovascular collapse, which is a very common symptom from the brown snake envenomation in Australia. We weren’t quite sure what was causing collapse. Now we have shown there are two distinct mechanisms – one that causes low blood pressure that you can revive from, and sudden cardiovascular collapse that usually leads to death.”
An Australian eastern brown, one of the world\'s most venomous snakes.
The paper distinguishes between the two effects on the human body for the first time.
The Russell’s viper species interest her greatly. They’re named after the pioneering Scottish herpetologist Patrick Russell, who, in the late 1700s, travelled through India looking for dangerous snakes, and documenting them.
“The Russell’s viper is found throughout Asia; however, interestingly, the venom is slightly different in each region,” she says. “We thought the snake caused cardiovascular collapse, but through my research we now know it causes hypotension that you can recover from. The Australian brown snake and the carpet viper from Nigeria, despite being two different species of snake, cause cardiovascular collapse, but through a very similar mechanism.”
That “mechanism”, though, is unclear. “We think once you are bitten, the venom is causing your body to release factors in the body that causes blood pressure to drop. It can do this suddenly, or slowly. Russell’s viper venom contains toxins that cause blood pressure to decrease via potassium channels found in our blood vessels, while the Australian brown snake and the carpet viper do not.”
Snakes. They can kill you, quickly and painfully. Or they can cure, maybe better than we already knew.
Sanjaya Kuruppu was a Research Fellow in Monash\'s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the time of writing this article. He has since moved on from Monash.
https://lens.monash.edu/@coronavirus-articles/2020/05/07/1380319/snakes-alive-venom-may...
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