Poster 059 - Biochemical and enzymatic characterization of Brazilian centipedes venoms

Poster 59. Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Toxinologia, 8., Symposium of the Pan American Section of the International Society on Toxinology, 8., 2004, Angra dos Reis, Brasil. Abstracts... J. Venom. Anim. Toxins incl.Trop. Dis., 2004, 10, 3, p.418.

^{1Malta, M. B.; ¹Rocha, G.C.; ²Knysak, I.; ²Martins, R. and ¹Barbaro, K.C.}

1 Laboratory of Immunopathology; 2 Laboratory of Arthropods, Butantan Institute, São Paulo, Brazil.

In Brazil, there are some reports of human accidents caused by centipedes Otostigmus, Cryptops and Scolopendra. These animals have a pair of forceps connected to a venom gland used to arrest the prey. They prefer hidden places which allow an easy adaptation around and inside dwelling in urban areas. The clinical picture presented by patients accidentally bitten is characterized by burning pain, paresthesia and edema, sometimes evolving to superficial necrosis. The aim of this work was characterize some biochemical and enzymatic proprieties of O. cavalcantii, C. iheringi and S. viridicornis venoms. By SDS-PAGE (10% and 5-15%), stained by silver nitrate, it was observed differences among the venoms. The electrophoretic pattern of S. viridicornis and O. cavalcantii are similar, with around 10 major components localized between 89 and 18.1 kDa. On the other hand, in the C. iheringi venom 8 major components were detected between 131 and 89 kDa. The three venoms showed similar components distributed above 131 kDa, with two major components around 160 and 220 kDa. Caseinolytic and gelatinolytic activities were observed around 42 and 25 kDa regions in the S. viridicornis and O. cavalcantii. In the C. iheringi venom, the caseinolytic activity was detected around 163 kDa and gelatinolytic activity around 155 kDa. The fibirinogenolytic (38, 30 and 31 kDa) and hyaluronidase (50 and 30 kDa) activities were only found in S. viridicornis and O. cavalcantii venoms. Most of these enzymatic components are metalloproteinases since the incubation with 1,10 phenanthroline abolished their activities. No phospholipase activity was detected in centipedes venoms. Biological activities of S. viridicornis venom were also studied. Nociception was detected after venom intraplantar injection. Significant edema was observed with peak activity at 15 min, decreasing to basal level 72 hours after injection. The S. viridicornis also showed a discrete hemorrhagic activity. All toxic activities verified in the S. viridicornis were dose dependent. Biological activities results point to mice as an important experimental model to study centipede venom. Ours results showed that S. viridicornis, O. cavalcantii and C. iheringi venoms have distinct components with enzymatic activity. Additionally, taken altogether our results we can suggest the symptomatology observed in human after the centipedes bite could be caused by the enzymatic and toxic activities found in the venoms.