Snake venoms and their toxins: An Australian perspective

Australia is home to a vast collection of highly venomous terrestrial and marine snakes. As such, Australia has proven to be an excellent source of investigative material for both local and international toxinologists. Research on snake venoms initially focussed on identifying the most lethal specie...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Toxicon (Oxford) 2006-12, Vol.48 (7), p.931-940
Main Authors: Hodgson, Wayne C., Wickramaratna, Janith C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Antivenins - economics
Antivenins - therapeutic use
Australia
Colubrid
Elapid
Humans
Snake
Snake Bites - therapy
Snake Venoms - classification
Snake Venoms - isolation & purification
Snake Venoms - toxicity
Toxin
Venom
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Summary:Australia is home to a vast collection of highly venomous terrestrial and marine snakes. As such, Australia has proven to be an excellent source of investigative material for both local and international toxinologists. Research on snake venoms initially focussed on identifying the most lethal species, and the venom components responsible for the lethality, so that treatment strategies could be implemented. Since then, the focus of research has included the isolation and characterisation of toxins (primarily neurotoxins), examination of the efficacy of commercially available antivenoms and, more recently, the use of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LCMS) to aid in the analysis of whole venoms. Given the vast quantity of research undertaken over the past 70 yr we have tried to provide a short insight into some of this excellent work and identify areas requiring further examination.
ISSN:0041-0101
1879-3150
DOI:10.1016/j.toxicon.2006.07.018