title: Centipede venoms and their components: resources for potential therapeutic applications.
abstract: Venomous animals have evolved with sophisticated bio-chemical strategies to arrest prey and defend themselves from natural predators. In recent years, peptide toxins from venomous animals have drawn considerable attention from researchers due to their surprising chemical, biochemical, and pharmacological diversity. Similar to other venomous animals, centipedes are one of the crucial venomous arthropods that have been used in traditional medicine for hundreds of years in China. Despite signifying pharmacological importance, very little is known about the active components of centipede venoms. More than 500 peptide sequences have been reported in centipede venomous glands by transcriptome analysis, but only a small number of peptide toxins from centipede has been functionally described. Like other venomous animals such as snakes, scorpions, and spiders, the venom of centipedes could be an excellent source of peptides for developing drugs for treatments as well as bio-insecticides for agrochemical applications. Although centipede venoms are yet to be adequately studied, the venom of centipedes as well as their components described to date, should be compiled to help further research. Therefore, based on previous reports, this review focusses on findings and possible therapeutic applications of centipede venoms as well as their components.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of sciences, Kunming 650223, Yunnan, China. hakeem.geb.ru@gmail.com.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100009, China. hakeem.geb.ru@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Md Abdul
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Hakim
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of sciences, Kunming 650223, Yunnan, China. yslzoology@163.com.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100009, China. yslzoology@163.com.
authors.forename: Shilong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of sciences, Kunming 650223, Yunnan, China. rlai@mail.kiz.ac.cn.|Joint Laboratory of Natural Peptide, University of Science and Technology of China and Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China. rlai@mail.kiz.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ren
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001180:Arthropod Venoms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000201:enzymology / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001181:Arthropods; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional
chemical_list: D001180:Arthropod Venoms
keywords: centipedes; peptides; pharmacology; therapeutics; toxins; venom