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07 May 2020
Medicine and health
Snakes alive:
6 Minute Read
Venom may play a role in the fight against COVID-19
Things can change quickly in medical science, especially during a pandemic.
Rewind to 2018, and Monash University pharmacologist Dr Sanjaya Kuruppu wins a prestigious grant from the United States to research a peptide from a deadly snake that may prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
The team he co-leads gets to work - with new funding from the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) - on investigating a molecule from the Bothrops asper, a pit viper from South and Central America.
It is an aggressive snake that accounts for the most snake-bite deaths in the region. But its venom looks like it can counter the toxic protein amyloid beta, which is a cause of Alzheimer’s disease; a molecule in the venom perks up two enzymes that clear amyloid beta.
On the team are Dr Kurrupu’s mentor, Professor Ian Smith, Monash University’s Vice-Provost (Research and Research Infrastructure); Professor Helena Parkington from Monash’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI); and Dr Niwanthi Rajapakse, a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland. Dr Kuruppu works for the Monash Venom Research Laboratory (within BDI) from the University of Queensland.
Researchers found the peptide they were already looking at for Alzheimer’s disease may help in the fight, or future fights, against COVID-19.
In the two years or so since, they tweak their synthesized peptide to try and make it work better on the Alzheimer’s protein in the brain. They begin finding ways to make it cross the blood-brain barrier, making it potentially more effective. Because peptides break down easily in the bloodstream, they work on improving its stability.
A turning point in the lab as COVID-19 appears
Then, on New Year’s Eve last year, everything in medical science changed. Health authorities report a cluster of apparent pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China.
It was, in fact, a new strain of an acute respiratory coronavirus – COVID-19. Two weeks later the first case was found outside China, in Thailand. Now, in May, more than 200,000 are dead, making it the worst pandemic since the Great Plague of the 1600s.
Under the microscope: Russell\'s viper.
In the team’s lab, too, everything changed. The researchers found the peptide they were already looking at for Alzheimer’s disease may help in the fight, or future fights, against COVID-19.
“It binds to an enzyme which plays an important role in the cardiovascular system,†Dr Kuruppu says. The enzyme in question is called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2.
“Activating this enzyme also causes improvements in vascular function-it makes the blood vessels relax. This enzyme is also the receptor for COVID-19. Very early studies show it can stop the binding of proteins [the “spikes†in co mmonly seen images of the virus] to the cells. We found this very recently, and this is very preliminary, but it shows a lot of promise.â€
Snake venom - the great untapped resource
Snake venom has long been of peculiar interest to pharmacologists. They love the stuff, because, despite differing components between species, it’s full of weird and wonderful peptides, enzymes, neurotoxins and proteins, making it a complex and interesting “soup†that can kill, and also cure. Lizard and cone snail venoms are also useful.
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