Snake venomics – from low-resolution toxin-pattern recognition to toxin-resolved venom proteomes with absolute quantification

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Venoms are integrated phenotypes used by a wide range of organisms for predatory and defensive purposes. The study of venoms is of great interest in diverse fields, such as evolutionary ecology and biotechnology. Omics technologies have contributed to understanding the evolutionary mechanisms that molded snake venoms to their present-day structural and functional variability landscape.

Areas covered: This review article reflects on two recent implementations in venomics: absolute quantification of intact proteins by elemental mass spectrometry, and top-down molecular mass spectrometry.

Expert commentary: Leveraging on a new way of polyatomic interference removal, a triple quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry configuration has proven feasible for the absolute quantification of venom toxins via sulfur detection. A major advantage of this approach over quantitative molecular mass spectrometry techniques is that only a generic S-standard is required to quantify all the chromatographically separated sulfur-containing fractions. Top-down venomics is in its infancy but, due to recent hardware and software developments, is gaining momentum. Proteoform-resolved venom proteomes are needed to understand the spatio-temporal variability landscape underlying the adaptations that drive intraspecific venom evolution. Integrating top-down venomics and absolute proteoform quantification into a novel elemental and molecular mass spectrometry configuration will represent a quantitative leap in the study of individual venoms.

KEYWORDS:

• Snake venom
• venomics
• top-down mass spectrometry
• elemental mass spectrometry
• proteome-resolved venom proteome
• ICP-MS
• absolute quantification

Declaration of interest

The author has 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 apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by grant BFU2013-42833-P, from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Madrid, Spain.