Green mamba snake venom

Dajas, F., Bolioli, B., Castello, M.E., Silveira, R. (1987). Rat striatal acetylcholinesterase inhibition by fasciculin (a polypeptide fi-om green mamba snake venom). Neurosci. Lett. 77 87-91. 

Le Du, M.H., Marchot, R, Bougis, R, et al., 1992. 1.9-A Resolution structure of fasciculin 1, an anti-acetylcholinesterase toxin from green mamba snake venom. J. Biol. Chem. 267, 22122-22130. 

Acetylcholine receptors - muscarinic agonists There are a number of natural plant alkaloid toxins, including arecoline, muscarine and pilocarpine and green mamba snake peptides venoms, including MTl, MT2, MTS and MT4. 

The fasciculins are a family of closely related peptides that are isolated from the venom of mambas and exert their toxic action by inhibiting AChE. The crystal structure of fasciculin 2 from green mamba Dendroaspis angusticeps) snake venom was first resolved in 1992 (Le Du et al., 1992). The three-dimensional (3D) structure of fasciculin 1 obtained from the US National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, MMDB database is illustrated in Figure 11.2. 

Finally, venoms from different snakes from the Elapidae and Hydrophidae families also contain a cocktail of different paralytic toxins, some of which are selective for voltage-dependent Ca channels. For instance, the venom of the black mamba Dendroaspis polylepis polylepis contains a toxin termed calciseptine, which selectively blocks L-type Ca channels [6] and the venom from the green mamba D. agusticeps contains calcicludine, a toxin that acts as a potent blocker of most of the HVA Ca channels [7]. 

FIGURE 30.2 The 3-D protein structure of Fasl derived from green mamba (D. angusticeps) snake venom. Source Image obtained from the public domain at the US National Library of Medicine, Natiorud Center for Biotechnology Information, MMDB. 

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