Chemistry of Venomous Snakes
Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network
Chemistry Connections
Chemistry of Snake Venom
Episode # 6
Segment 1: Introduction to Snake Venoms
- 2 Main categories of venomous snakes
- Elapids
- Elapids
- Any of 300 species of venomous snakes (all venomous)
- Short, fixed fangs at the front of the Jaw
- Long, slender bodies with small heads
- Mostly lay eggs, but a few do bear living young (largely only Australian species)
- Bite with a downward strike, and often chew prey to envenomate
- Bite relatively painless, but can kill quickly through paralysis of heart and lung muscles
- Cobra relatives
- Talk about fang structure
- General characteristics
- Viperids (Vipers)
- Over 200 related species
- Long, hollow fangs that are folded back to the roof of the mouth until striking
- Some species, known as pit vipers, have a temperature-sensing organ that allows them to hunt warm-blooded prey even when they cannot see
- Large venom glands lead to a more triangular or pear-shaped head
- Fang structure and general characteristics
Segment 2: The Chemistry Behind Snake Venoms
Have a natural transition into an example… no need to say “segment 2”
Provide detailed explanations of the chemistry that is related to your topic.
Remember that you must have a minimum of 2 topics from ap chem that you can explain here as related to your episode
- Viperid and elapid venom mechanism of action
- Viperid – hemolytic and necrotic
- How and why
- Specific example – Saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus)
- Affects blood circulation, causing severe tissue and organ damage.
- Certain proteins prevent blood coagulation by preferentially binding to prothrombin, cleaving it into meizothrombin, which cannot be used along the typical clotting pathway
- Leads to catastrophic internal bleeding and hemmorhage, which in turn leads to shock when too much blood has left the circulatory system
- Reversed with antivenom
- Elapid – typically neurotoxic
- How and why
- Discuss neurochemistry of neurotoxins, why toxin binds to receptors
- Go in detail with one example – Inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus)
- LD50 of 0.025 mg/kg in mice, 0.01 mg/kg in bovine serum
- Venom primarily kills through neurotoxins
- Presynaptic – paradoxin
- Blocks release of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter responsible for muscle contraction
- Depolarizes the neuron, preventing the firing of action potentials
- One of the most potent, if not most potent, presynaptic neurotoxins known to man, but still largely unknown in function
- Believed to fuse ACh-containing vesicles to the presynaptic membrane, and prevent recycling of already-used vesicles
- Affects the permeability of the phospholipid membrane through altering structure as it binds to the surface.
- Postsynaptic – oxylepitoxin 1, alpha oxytoxin 1, alpha-scutoxin 1
- Bind to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in muscles antagonistically, causing inhibition of the receptor
- Prevent the reception of a signal to move
- Two types of receptors, nicotinic and muscarinic
- Nicotinic in central nervous system, muscarinic in peripheral nervous system and associated with autonomous nervous system and organs
- Only treatment is to use a mechanical ventilator and administer carbachol
Segment 3: Personal Connections
- I have always been interested in snakes, especially
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Sources:
List your sources here. Make sure they are linked. Wikipedia cannot count for more than 50% of your sources.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390807000056
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17313963/
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “elapid”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Jun. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/animal/elapid . Accessed 24 May 2023.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “viper”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Apr. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/animal/viper-snake . Accessed 24 May 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echis_carinatus#Venom
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16879898/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/866568/
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Warm Nights by @LakeyInspired
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