JVATiTD - Collections
Official publication of CEVAP/UNESP
Highlights in toxinology: challenges and progress
The history of venom studies traces back more than two millennia. Aristotle (384-322 BC), for example, in his Historia Animalium he offered details on venomous animals and their bites. Initially, venom studies were focused only on medical outcomes due to the high number of fatalities occurring especially in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, including America, Africa, Asia and Australia.
Currently, enormous progress has been made aiming to treat or prevent deleterious or deadly actions of toxins from animals and plants. Moreover, venoms have become an almost inexhaustible source of biologically active molecules. Among those, several are models for drugs or tools for studying the structure and function of biological systems, such as the nervous, cardiovascular, neuromuscular and others.
More than 20% of the world biodiversity is found in Brazil, where the study of animal venoms and toxins began in the 1900s with the pioneering work of Vital Brazil Mineiro da Campanha, a physician internationally renowned for the discovery of antivenom specificity. Since then, Brazil has invested little in the area of Toxinology. One of the most successful projects, called Toxinologia-CAPES, was launched in 2010 by the Brazilian Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES).
In 2016, the moment in which the project is being concluded, it is possible to celebrate the qualification of dozens of masters and doctors and hundreds of students, who participated in international congresses and presented their thesis and dissertations with brilliance. Needless to say that several discovered molecules became candidates for drug development, which means that countless papers were published and numerous patents were submitted.
In this special collection, we wish to honor the researchers that took part in the Toxinologia-CAPES project by publishing their best production of the period, which demonstrates the high level of science in Brazil in this area. It also reinforces the need of continuous support to the research on natural substances of this great biodiversity, because knowledge is the key to preservation.
This collection has been funded by CAPES (Edital Toxinologia 063/2010) and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process. The Editors declare no competing interests.
Review | Effects of Brazilian scorpion venoms on the central nervous system
Ana Leonor Abrahão Nencioni, Emidio Beraldo Neto, Lucas Alves de Freitas and Valquiria Abrão Coronado Dorce
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Research | BaltDC: purification, characterization and infrared spectroscopy of an antiplatelet DC protein isolated from Bothrops alternatus snake venom
Mariana Santos Matias, Bruna Barbosa de Sousa, Déborah Fernanda da Cunha Pereira, Edigar Henrique Vaz Dias, Carla Cristine Neves Mamede, Mayara Ribeiro de Queiroz, Anielle Christine Almeida Silva, Noelio Oliveira Dantas, Andreimar Martins Soares, Júnia de Oliveira Costa and Fábio de Oliveira
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Research | Jaburetox: update on a urease-derived peptide
Arlete Beatriz Becker-Ritt, Camila Saretta Portugal and Célia Regina Carlini
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Review | Perinatal effects of scorpion venoms: maternal and offspring development
Ana Leticia Coronado Dorce, Adriana do Nascimento Martins, Valquiria Abrão Coronado Dorce and Ana Leonor Abrahão Nencioni
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Short report | Antivenomics as a tool to improve the neutralizing capacity of the crotalic antivenom: a study with crotamine
Ricardo Teixeira-Araújo, Patrícia Castanheira, Leonora Brazil-Más, Francisco Pontes, Moema Leitão de Araújo, Maria Lucia Machado Alves, Russolina Benedeta Zingali and Carlos Correa-Netto
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Review | Heterologous fibrin sealant derived from snake venom: from bench to bedside – an overview
Rui Seabra Ferreira Jr, Luciana Curtolo de Barros, Luciana Patrícia Fernandes Abbade, Silvia Regina Catharino Sartori Barraviera, Maria Regina Cavariani Silvares, Leticia Gomes de Pontes, Lucilene Delazari dos Santos and Benedito Barraviera
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Review | Alpha-type phospholipase A2 inhibitors from snake blood
Norival A. Santos-Filho and Claudia T. Santos
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Research | Articular inflammation induced by an enzymatically-inactive Lys49 phospholipase A2: activation of endogenous phospholipases contributes to the pronociceptive effect
Renata Gonçalves Dias, Sandra Coccuzzo Sampaio, Morena Brazil Sant’Anna, Fernando Queiroz Cunha, José María Gutiérrez, Bruno Lomonte, Yara Cury and Gisele Picolo
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Research | A clinical trial protocol to treat massive Africanized honeybee (Apis mellifera) attack with a new apilic antivenom
Alexandre Naime Barbosa, Leslie Boyer, Jean-Philippe Chippaux, Natalia Bronzatto Medolago, Carlos Antonio Caramori, Ariane Gomes Paixão, João Paulo Vasconcelos Poli, Mônica Bannwart Mendes, Lucilene Delazari dos Santos, Rui Seabra Ferreira Jr and Benedito Barraviera
Review | Multiple uses of fibrin sealant for nervous system treatment following injury and disease
Natalia Perussi Biscola, Luciana Politti Cartarozzi, Suzana Ulian-Benitez, Roberta Barbizan, Mateus Vidigal Castro, Aline Barroso Spejo, Rui Seabra Ferreira Jr., Benedito Barraviera and Alexandre Leite Rodrigues Oliveira
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Research | Can anti-bothropstoxin-I antibodies discriminate between Bothrops jararaca and Bothrops jararacussu venoms?
Ricardo Teixeira Araujo, Carlos Corrêa-Netto, Leonora Brazil-Más, Caio Raony Farina Silveira, Irene Fernandes and Russolina Benedeta Zingali
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Research | Structural determinants of the hyperalgesic activity of myotoxic Lys49-phospholipase A2
Vanessa Olzon Zambelli, Lucimara Chioato, Vanessa Pacciari Gutierrez, Richard John Ward and Yara Cury
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Review | Highlights in the knowledge of brown spider toxins
Daniele Chaves-Moreira, Andrea Senff-Ribeiro, Ana Carolina Martins Wille, Luiza Helena Gremski, Olga Meiri Chaim and Silvio Sanches Veiga
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Review | Ocellatin peptides from the skin secretion of the South American frog Leptodactylus labyrinthicus (Leptodactylidae): characterization, antimicrobial activities and membrane interactions
Karla A. G. Gusmão, Daniel M. dos Santos, Virgílio M. Santos, María Esperanza Cortés, Pablo V. M. Reis, Vera L. Santos, Dorila Piló-Veloso, Rodrigo M. Verly, Maria Elena de Lima and Jarbas M. Resende
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Review | Antiviral activity of animal venom peptides and related compounds
Élida Cleyse Gomes da Mata, Caroline Barbosa Farias Mourão, Marisa Rangel and Elisabeth Ferroni Schwartz
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Review | Endogenous phospholipase A2 inhibitors in snakes: a brief overview
Patrícia Cota Campos, Lutiana Amaral de Melo, Gabriel Latorre Fortes Dias and Consuelo Latorre Fortes-Dias
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Research | Exploring the in vivo wound healing effects of a recombinant hemolin from the caterpillar Lonomia obliqua
Ana Claudia Sato, Rosemary Viola Bosch, Sonia Elisabete Alves Will, Miryam Paola Alvarez-Flores, Mauricio Barbugiani Goldfeder, Kerly Fernanda Mesquita Pasqualoto, Bárbara Athayde Vaz Galvão da Silva, Sonia Aparecida de Andrade and Ana Marisa Chudzinski-Tavassi
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Review | A review on the Scorpaena plumieri fish venom and its bioactive compounds
Fabiana V. Campos, Thiago N. Menezes, Pedro F. Malacarne, Fábio L. S. Costa, Gustavo B. Naumann, Helena L. Gomes and Suely G. Figueiredo
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Research | A spider derived peptide, PnPP-19, induces central antinociception mediated by opioid and cannabinoid systems
Daniela da Fonseca Pacheco, Ana Cristina Nogueira Freitas, Adriano Monteiro C. Pimenta, Igor Dimitri Gama Duarte and Maria Elena de Lima
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