Venoms database

Over the years, the accumulated expertise at Atheris labs on venomous organisms and toxins has evolved to “Venoms”, a proprietary database containing a wealth of information on species, venoms, toxins, clinical data, and supporting bibliography. More specifically it hosts:

• > 2'000 described species - biology & systematics.
  
  
• > 3'500 toxins and enzymes - biochemistry & pharmacology.
  
  
• > 3'000 antimicrobial peptides (AMP) - biochemistry & pharmacology.
  
  
• > 1'000 MS maps of crude venoms - molecular masses.
  
  
• > 300’000 references - fully indexed.
  
  
• Envenomation symptoms - clinical data.
  
  
• Intellectual property files - pending & granted patents.
  
  
• Technology survey - market & business analyses.

Venoms comes with an intuitive navigation structure with specifically developed search and sort engines. Any word or part of a word can be found within seconds and the information can be classified.

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Venomous animals

Oh! You Pretty Things

The biology of 1'059 different venomous snakes is the nucleus of this first module of the Venoms database, with full descriptions of each animal. It includes a complete zoological classification according to the latest systematic nomenclature, actual scientific name, common names (in English, French and German), original name, scientific synonyms, geographical range including more than 600 illustrated color geographic maps, and some 2'000 professional color pictures of the animals. Specific description (morphology, habits and habitat), information on food, venom and specific comments are also included for each snake.

The database covers all snakes of the Atractaspididae, Azemiopinae, Crotalidae, Elapidae, Hydrophiidae and Viperidae families as well as venomous Colubridae.

Besides venomous snakes, Venoms contains extensive information on other venomous animals such as cone snails, spiders, scorpions, and hymenoptera.

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Animal toxins

This module of the Venoms database is based on biomedical aspects of venom research. It contains a complete list of all venomous animal's proteins (toxins and enzymes) that have been described so far with their amino acid sequences. This registry contains more than 3’500 toxins and enzymes with as much structural and functional information as possible for each of them, together with links to the animal's description and major bibliographical references. More recently, these files were completed with the addition of more than 3'000 antimicrobial peptides.

All these compounds have been classified into families according to their mode of action, and a nomenclature system has been expressly developed. Major features include a unique toxin code, toxin name, toxin synonyms, animal's description, amino acid sequence, precursor, sequence conflicts, molecular weight, disulphide bridges and other post-translational modifications, 3D structure, DNA sequence, toxin family, similarity to other compounds, activity, active site, catalytic activity, mode of action, LD (50), links to other databases, keywords and more specific comments.

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Bibliographical references

The Venoms database boasts an extensive bibliography containing more than 300'000 references covering all publications in the field of venomous animals, envenomation, venoms and their constituents over the last 500 years. It contains sources such as scientific and non-scientific articles, reviews, books, book chapters, patents, thesis and databases. This bibliographic file includes features such as title, authors, year of publication, editors, publishers, abstract, source and keywords that were specifically assigned to each reference. This module is not only regularly updated with new references, but also with older ones.

These files are also implemented with intellectual property information, patents, and various technology and market studies we undertake on a continuous basis.

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Venoms MS mapping

At Atheris we have developed our own methodology for the fast and efficient preliminary screening of crude venoms. The analysis of hundreds of venom samples of different species and distinct origins by direct MALDI-TOF-MS or on-line LC-ESI-MS enables to complete the Venoms database with venom mass fingerprints.

Following an appropriate procedure of sample preparation, mass spectra are acquired for each sample under different analytical conditions. The recorded spectra are subsequently incremented with the list of all detected masses and the results of the comparison with described sequences from venoms of other species.

The resulting database of protein profiles of crude venoms is a powerful tool and a key element in our subsequent targeted drug discovery program.

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Clinical data

We are presently in the process of further developing our database dedicated to clinical information on envenomation symptoms. These files relate clinical cases, envenomation symptoms and treatment recommendations. This considerably leverages the efficiency of our in silico text mining strategies for a « smart » screening and selection of animal species that may contain bioactive compounds of interest for a given medical application.

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