The venom of the king cobra can kill us, but properly treated it can also give us life, since its toxins act as inhibitors of neuronal communication and palliative of many diseases. The medical utility of certain of its proteins has led an international team of scientists to sequence its genome , with the aim of clarifying how the venom is generated in its body. Simultaneously, the genome of a non-venomous snake has also been published, which has made it possible to compare the DNA of both species.
The venom secreted by the glands of snakes is the result of evolution, which endowed their body with a mechanism capable of transforming ordinary proteins into neurotoxins. This powerful biological weapon represents a great challenge for scientists , who tirelessly seek to unravel the keys to its production in order to create and modify it in the laboratory in the future. In this research, which had the participation of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), all the genetic information of a king cobra specimen was collected.
The king cobra, which lives in the forests of Southeast Asia and feeds on other types of snake, uses venom as a chemical weapon to capture its prey and to defend itself against predators. Although it does not have the deadliest venom in the animal kingdom, a single bite can be enough to kill an elephant , as pointed out by the scientific news agency SINC.
The scientific community will use this valuable information to develop future methods of isolating beneficial toxins, which could help slow the development of diseases such as cancer metastasis .
