Venom peptides as therapeutics: advances, challenges and the future of venom-peptide discovery

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Animal venoms are complex chemical arsenals. Most venoms are rich in bioactive peptides with proven potential as research tools, drug leads and drugs.

Areas covered: We review recent advances in venom-peptide discovery, particularly the adoption of combined transcriptomic/proteomic approaches for the exploration of venom composition.

Expert commentary: Advances in transcriptomics and proteomics have dramatically altered the manner and rate of venom-peptide discovery. The increasing trend towards a toxin-driven approach, as opposed to traditional target-based screening of venoms, is likely to expedite the discovery of venom-peptides with novel structures and new and unanticipated mechanisms of action. At the same time, these advances will drive the development of higher-throughput approaches for target identification. Taken together, these approaches should enhance our understanding of the natural ecological function of venom peptides and increase the rate of identification of novel venom-derived pharmacological tools, drug leads and drugs.

KEYWORDS:

• Venom
• peptide
• toxin
• mass spectrometry
• proteome
• transcriptome

Declaration of interest

The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This paper received financial support from the Australian Research Council, DECRA Fellowship (E.A.B. Undheim), and Discovery Grant DP160104025 (E.A.B. Undheim and G.F.King) and the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council (Principal Research Fellowship to G.F.King).