STUDY OF THE VENOM OF Tityus serrulatus (SCORPIONES; BUTHIDAE) FROM TWO REGIONS OF THE STATE OF BAHIA, BRAZIL

SILVA T.F. 1; LIRA-DA-SILVA R. M.1; CASAIS-E-SILVA L. L.2

(1) Núcleo de Ofiologia e Animais Peçonhentos da Bahia (NOAP); Instituto de Biologia; Universidade Federal da Bahia; (2) Núcleo de Estudos de Venenos Animais; Fundação Bahiana para Desenvolvimento das Ciências (NEVA/FBDC)

The Tityus serrulatus scorpion causes most accidents and induces the most serious forms of poisoning in Brazil. The present was designed to characterize the T. serrulatus venom (0.4 or 0.8 mg/Kg)  (TsV) from the Region Metropolitan of Salvador (RMS) and the Southwestern Region of the State of the Bahia (RSB), Brazil to investigate whether there is regional variation of this specie. Male Swiss mice (18-22g) was used to evaluate the toxicity for the FINNEY method (1971).  Pulmonary edema was calculated by the difference of humid weight of the lung of control and experimental rats. The neurotoxic activity was determined by observation of behavioural of the animals after envenomation. The statistics analysis was performed by ANOVA (P<0.05) using the program Graphpad InStat®. The calculated LD50 was 96.3 µg/mice for RMS and 39.1 µg/mice for the RSB. These results showed low toxicity compared to TsV from other regions of Brazil. Our results also demonstrated that the venom of both regions do not induce pulmonary edema, as assessed by the evaluation of the index lung/corporal weight as the histological evaluation. Mice injected intravenously presented similar autonomic signs for both venoms. Only the presence of aggressiveness and absence of sialorrhea and ocular congestion were observed for venom of Southwestern Region. It is concluded that TsV from Bahia State shows low toxicity and do not induces lung edema.  Our data suggest that these features seem contribute to the absence of death for the poisoning for Tityus serrulatus registered in the Region Metropolitan of Salvador.

KEY WORDS: scorpion, venom, T.serrulatus

CORRESPONDENCE TO: Tiago Ferreira da Silva; tiagofs@ufba.br; Luciana L. Casais e Silva; casais@uneb.br; Rejane M. Lira da Silva; rejane@ufba.br