![]() The cyclical shape of the headless molecule means that it has different chemical properties than the linear headless lipid believed to be generated by the protein, Cordes explained. "We didn't find what we thought we were going to find," Cordes added. Binford, an arachnologist who has traveled the world in search of the eight-legged creatures, collected the spiders, isolated their DNA and milked their venom, which was then frozen and shipped to the UA labs for analysis. who, completed her doctorate and a postdoc at the UA.Ĭordes, Bandarian and Daniel Lajoie, a PhD candidate in Cordes's lab, tested venom from three species of brown recluse spiders from North and South America. The research team includes Cordes Vahe Bandarian, an associate professor also in the UA's department of chemistry and biochemistry and Greta Binford, an associate professor of biology at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. So initially scientists believed that this was all that was happening, then that became established in the literature." "Part of the outcome of the reaction, the release of the head group, is the same. The lipid knocks off its own head by making a ring within itself, prompted by the protein from the spider venom, Cordes explained. "The very first step of this whole process that leads to skin and tissue damage or systemic effects is not what we all thought it was," Cordes said. The research team has discovered that in the test tube, the venom protein causes lipids to bend into a ring structure upon the loss of the head portion, generating a cyclical chemical product that is very different than the linear molecule it was assumed to produce. The protein acts to cleave off the head portion of the lipids, leaving behind, scientists long have assumed, a simple, linear, headless lipid molecule. The protein, once injected into a bite wound, attacks phospholipid molecules that are the major component of cell membranes. "This is not a protein that is usually found in the venom of poisonous animals," said Matthew Cordes, an associate professor in the UA's department of chemistry and biochemistry and member of the UA BIO5 Institute who led the study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE. One of few common spiders whose bites can have a seriously harmful effect on humans, the brown recluse has venom that contains a rare protein that can cause a blackened lesion at the site of a bite, or a much less common, but more dangerous, systemic reaction in humans. The finding has implications for understanding how these spider bites affect humans and for the development of possible treatments for the bites. University of Arizona researchers led a team that has discovered that venom of spiders in the genus Loxosceles, which contains about 100 spider species including the brown recluse, produces a different chemical product in the human body than scientists believed. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |