Antiviral activity of animal venom peptides and related compounds

Abstract

Viruses exhibit rapid mutational capacity to trick and infect host cells, sometimes assisted through virus-coded peptides that counteract host cellular immune defense. Although a large number of compounds have been identified as inhibiting various viral infections and disease progression, it is urgent to achieve the discovery of more effective agents. Furthermore, proportionally to the great variety of diseases caused by viruses, very few viral vaccines are available, and not all are efficient. Thus, new antiviral substances obtained from natural products have been prospected, including those derived from venomous animals. Venoms are complex mixtures of hundreds of molecules, mostly peptides, that present a large array of biological activities and evolved to putatively target the biochemical machinery of different pathogens or host cellular structures. In addition, non-venomous compounds, such as some body fluids of invertebrate organisms, exhibit antiviral activity. This review provides a panorama of peptides described from animal venoms that present antiviral activity, thereby reinforcing them as important tools for the development of new therapeutic drugs.

Investigating Antibacterial Effects of Latrodectus Dahli Crude Venom on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis

“…Recently, isolation of antibacterial molecules from animals, such as AMPs has been considered for the treatment of diseases. Venoms of different species such as snakes, spiders, insects, centipede and amphibians are rich sources of biologically active and therapeutic compounds including AMPs (4,6,(22)(23)(24). The innate immune system of arthropods has evolved a complex arrangement of constitutive and inducible AMPs that immediately destroy a large variety of pathogens.…”

A scorpion venom peptide Ev37 restricts viral late entry by alkalizing acidic organelles

“…With the rapid increase in the number of characterized scorpion venom compounds, many new drug candidates have been identified as potential medicines to inhibit viral infection (15). Scorpine-like peptides, such as scorpine (16), can inhibit DENV-2 infection as demonstrated earlier.…”

Nucleolin internalizesBothrops asperLys49 phospholipase A2forming cell surface amyloid-like assemblies

“…The preferential activity of these toxins against cancer cells (6,39,40) can be correlated to the fact that NCL is more abundant on the surface of these cells (16,41,42). Moreover, some snake PLA 2 s have been reported to have antiviral activity (43,44) and accordingly NCL is involved in internalization of many viruses (16,17). Third, several phenomena observed in cells following Mt-II intoxication can be explained by the interaction My-II/NCL: calcium entry is triggered also by NCL (45); the internalization of AS1411 takes place through macropinocytosis (46); NCL is involved also in cell adhesion and migration (42) and this could explain the rapid detachment of myotubes intoxicated with high doses of Mt-II (Video S2).…”