Primary culture of ant venom gland cells

Venom biotechnology: casting light on nature's deadliest weapons using synthetic biology

Venoms are complex chemical arsenals that have evolved independently many times in the animal kingdom. Venoms have attracted the interest of researchers because they are an important innovation that has contributed greatly to the evolutionary success of many animals, and their medical relevance offers significant potential for drug discovery. During the last decade, venom research has been revolutionized by the application of systems biology, giving rise to a novel field known as venomics. More recently, biotechnology has also made an increasing impact in this field. Its methods provide the means to disentangle and study venom systems across all levels of biological organization and, given their tremendous impact on the life sciences, these pivotal tools greatly facilitate the coherent understanding of venom system organization, development, biochemistry, and therapeutic activity. Even so, we lack a comprehensive overview of major advances achieved by applying biotechnology to venom systems. This review therefore considers the methods, insights, and potential future developments of biotechnological applications in the field of venom research. We follow the levels of biological organization and structure, starting with the methods used to study the genomic blueprint and genetic machinery of venoms, followed gene products and their functional phenotypes. We argue that biotechnology can answer some of the most urgent questions in venom research, particularly when multiple approaches are combined together, and with other venomics technologies.

Cell Lines for Honey Bee Virus Research

With ongoing colony losses driven in part by the Varroa mite and the associated exacerbation of the virus load, there is an urgent need to protect honey bees (Apis mellifera) from fatal levels of virus infection and from the non-target effects of insecticides used in agricultural settings. A continuously replicating cell line derived from the honey bee would provide a valuable tool for the study of molecular mechanisms of virus-host interaction, for the screening of antiviral agents for potential use within the hive, and for the assessment of the risk of current and candidate insecticides to the honey bee. However, the establishment of a continuously replicating honey bee cell line has proved challenging. Here, we provide an overview of attempts to establish primary and continuously replicating hymenopteran cell lines, methods (including recent results) of establishing honey bee cell lines, challenges associated with the presence of latent viruses (especially Deformed wing virus) in established cell lines and methods to establish virus-free cell lines. We also describe the potential use of honey bee cell lines in conjunction with infectious clones of honey bee viruses for examination of fundamental virology.

Diversity of peptide toxins from stinging ant venoms

Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) represent a taxonomically diverse group of arthropods comprising nearly 13,000 extant species. Sixteen ant subfamilies have individuals that possess a stinger and use their venom for purposes such as a defence against predators, competitors and microbial pathogens, for predation, as well as for social communication. They exhibit a range of activities including antimicrobial, haemolytic, cytolytic, paralytic, insecticidal and pain-producing pharmacologies. While ant venoms are known to be rich in alkaloids and hydrocarbons, ant venoms rich in peptides are becoming more common, yet remain understudied. Recent advances in mass spectrometry techniques have begun to reveal the true complexity of ant venom peptide composition. In the few venoms explored thus far, most peptide toxins appear to occur as small polycationic linear toxins, with antibacterial properties and insecticidal activity. Unlike other venomous animals, a number of ant venoms also contain a range of homodimeric and heterodimeric peptides with one or two interchain disulfide bonds possessing pore-forming, allergenic and paralytic actions. However, ant venoms seem to have only a small number of monomeric disulfide-linked peptides. The present review details the structure and pharmacology of known ant venom peptide toxins and their potential as a source of novel bioinsecticides and therapeutic agents.

Isolation and characterization of myrmexins, six isoforms of venom proteins with anti-inflammatory activity from the tropical ant, Pseudomyrmex triplarinus

Venom from the tropical ant, Pseudomyrmex triplarinus, has anti-inflammatory properties demonstrated by the carrageenin-induced edema animal mode. A multi-protein complex that inhibits edema was isolated from the venom and was further characterized by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF) and amino acid sequencing. Although the complex exhibited a single band in SDS-PAGE electrophoresis, six proteins (isoforms) were resolved and purified to homogeneity and were designated myrmexin I-VI. They have very similar molecular masses between 6998 and 7142 Da. Each myrmexin is a heterodimer consisting of a small subunit (SS1 or SS2 or SS3) disulfide-linked to a larger, quite structurally unrelated subunit (LS1 or LS2). Thus, the myrmexin complex consists of six isoforms of venom proteins: myrmexin I (SS1/LS2), myrmexin II (SS1/LS1), myrmexin III (SS2/LS2), myrmexin IV (SS3/LS2), myrmexin V (SS2/LS1), myrmexin VI (SS3/LS1). Subunit SS1 is highly homologous to SS2 (96% of identity) and SS3 (87% of identity) and LS1 is highly homologous to LS2 (79% of identity). Our study suggests that myrmexins may represent a new class of anti-inflammatory proteins.

Inhibition of human platelet aggregation and secretion by ant venom and a compound isolated from venom

Venom from the tropical ant, Pseudomyrmex triplarinus, has activity against rheumatoid arthritis. Since platelets are involved in inflammatory responses, they were employed to study the effects of venom on prostaglandin-dependent human platelet aggregation and secretion. The assay is very sensitive and uses microliter volumes, which makes it useful as a screen during isolation and characterization of venom components. Whole venom inhibited arachidonic acid- and U46619-induced platelet aggregation with IC50s of 45 and 39 micrograms/ml, respectively. This suggested that venom prevented the action of prostaglandins. Pure venom was fractionated by gel filtration and at least three materials with antiplatelet activity were detected. The smallest component (factor F) was most active and was purified by additional molecular filtration and characterized by UV absorbance, thin-layer chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, and activity to platelets. Factor F was identified as adenosine, which is known to stimulate platelet adenylate cyclase and has not been previously reported to be a component of insect venom.