title: Spider venomics: implications for drug discovery.
abstract: Over a period of more than 300 million years, spiders have evolved complex venoms containing an extraordinary array of toxins for prey capture and defense against predators. The major components of most spider venoms are small disulfide-bridged peptides that are highly stable and resistant to proteolytic degradation. Moreover, many of these peptides have high specificity and potency toward molecular targets of therapeutic importance. This unique combination of bioactivity and stability has made spider-venom peptides valuable both as pharmacological tools and as leads for drug development. This review describes recent advances in spider-venom-based drug discovery pipelines. We discuss spider-venom-derived peptides that are currently under investigation for treatment of a diverse range of pathologies including pain, stroke and cancer.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: Sandy S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Pineda
authors.forename: Eivind A B
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Undheim
authors.forename: Darshani B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Rupasinghe
authors.forename: Maria P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Ikonomopoulou
authors.forename: Glenn F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: King
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015220:Calcium Channels / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D055808:Drug Discovery; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D013111:Spider Venoms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D013112:Spiders / Q000378:metabolism; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D061566:Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D015220:Calcium Channels; D020033:Protein Isoforms; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D013111:Spider Venoms; D061566:Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels