In this study, Dr Stuart Ainsworth characterised the action of various snake venoms on the blood clotting cascade, and demonstrate that antivenoms and metal chelating agents provide unexpected cross-species efficacy for treating coagulopathy caused by snakebite.
Senior author Dr Nick Casewell said: “Each geographic area has huge diversity in the types of venomous snakes that cause different pathologies. Demonstrating here the feasibility of designing antivenoms that target specific pathologies, rather than focusing on a specific region of the world, should enable the development of a suite of pathology specific antivenoms that could be used globally in a modular manner across the world. This approach should also offer antivenom manufacturers with economies of scale to make snakebite treatments more affordable for the impoverished victims of the tropics who suffer the greatest burden of snakebite.”
This work has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and The Royal Society
The paraspecific neutralisation of snake venom induced coagulopathy by antivenoms
Stuart Ainsworth, Julien Slagboom, Nessrin Alomran, Davinia Pla, Yasir Alhamdi, Sarah I. King, Fiona M. S. Bolton, José María Gutiérrez, Freek J. Vonk, Cheng-Hock Toh, Juan J. Calvete, Jeroen Kool, Robert A. Harrison & Nicholas R. Casewell
Communications Biology volume 1, Article number: 34 (2018)
doi:10.1038/s42003-018-0039-1