title: Conopeptides from Cape Verde Conus crotchii.
abstract: Marine Cone snails of the genus Conus contain complex peptide toxins in their venom. Living in tropical habitats, they usually use the powerful venom for self-defense and prey capture. Here, we study Conus crotchii venom duct using a peptide mass-matching approach. The C. crotchii was collected on the Cape Verde archipelago in the Boa Vista Island. The venom was analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). About 488 molecular masses between 700 Da and 3000 Da were searched bymatching with known peptide sequences from UniProtKB protein sequence database. Through this method we were able to identify 12 conopeptides. For validation we considered the error between the experimental molecular mass (monoisotopic) and the calculated mass of less than 0.5 Da. All conopeptides detected belong to the A-, O1-, O2-, O3-, T- and D-superfamilies, which can block Ca²⁺ channels, inhibit K⁺ channels and act on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Only a few of the detected peptides have a 100% UniProtKB database similarity, suggesting that several of them could be newly discovered marine drugs.
authors.affiliation: CIIMAR/CIMAR-Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Rua dos Bragas 289, Porto 4050-123, Portugal.
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Neves
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Campos
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Osório
authors.forename: Agostinho
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Antunes
authors.forename: Vitor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D055726:Cabo Verde; D020916:Conotoxins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D052078:Conus Snail / Q000737:chemistry*; D030562:Databases, Protein; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019032:Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D020916:Conotoxins; D010455:Peptides