Identification of an antiviral component from the venom of the scorpion Liocheles australasiae using transcriptomic and mass spectrometric analyses.

Masahiro Miyashita, Naoya Mitani, Atsushi Kitanaka, Mao Yakio, Ming Chen, Sachiko Nishimoto, Hironobu Uchiyama, Masayuki Sue, Hak Hotta, Yoshiaki Nakagawa, Hisashi Miyagawa

Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology 2021 Feb

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Scorpion venom contains a variety of biologically active peptides. Among them, neurotoxins are major components in the venom, but it also contains peptides that show antimicrobial activity. Previously, we identified three insecticidal peptides from the venom of the Liocheles australasiae scorpion, but activities and structures of other venom components remained unknown. In this study, we performed a transcriptome analysis of the venom gland of the scorpion L. australasiae to gain a comprehensive understanding of its venom components. The result shows that potassium channel toxin-like peptides were the most diverse, whereas only a limited number of sodium channel toxin-like peptides were observed. In addition to these neurotoxin-like peptides, many non-disulfide-bridged peptides were identified, suggesting that these components have some critical roles in the L. australasiae venom. In this study, we also isolated a component with antiviral activity against hepatitis C virus using a bioassay-guided fractionation approach. By integrating mass spectrometric and transcriptomic data, we successfully identified LaPLA2-1 as an anti-HCV component. LaPLA2-1 is a phospholipase A2 having a heterodimeric structure that is N-glycosylated at the N-terminal region. Since the antiviral activity of LaPLA2-1 was inhibited by a PLA2 inhibitor, the enzymatic activity of LaPLA2-1 is likely to be involved in its antiviral activity. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Masahiro Miyashita, Naoya Mitani, Atsushi Kitanaka, Mao Yakio, Ming Chen, Sachiko Nishimoto, Hironobu Uchiyama, Masayuki Sue, Hak Hotta, Yoshiaki Nakagawa, Hisashi Miyagawa. Identification of an antiviral component from the venom of the scorpion Liocheles australasiae using transcriptomic and mass spectrometric analyses. Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology. 2021 Feb;191:25-37