A team of researchers coordinated by Professor Glenn King, from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, in Australia, has found seven compounds in spider venom that could have important applications in the treatment of pain , a disease that suffers from chronically forms one fifth of the world’s population.
As reported in the British Journal of Pharmacology , these are complexes that interfere with the nerve signals that are sent to the brain . Specifically, those that block the sodium ion channels Nav1.7, encoded by the SCN9A gene, are of particular interest. These are found at the endings of pain-sensitive nerves, in the area where the impulse arises.
The experts who have participated in this new study highlight that many of the 45,000 known species of spiders kill their prey after injecting them with poisons that contain hundreds of different protein molecules, some of which prevent nerve activity . “It is estimated that there are at least nine million of these peptides. Probably many more. And only 0.01% of this huge drug landscape has been explored so far, ”says Julie Kaae Klint, an electrophysiology expert who participated in the trial.
After developing a system capable of analyzing at high speed the compounds present in spider venom, the scientists studied that of 206 species. Thus, they found that in 40% of the poisons there was at least one complex capable of blocking the aforementioned Na1.7 sodium ion channels. Among them, they detected seven with possible applications in the treatment of pain, one especially powerful, whose chemical structure and thermal and biological stability suggest that it could be used in the development of a new drug .
