Investigating snake venom variation to mitigate snakebite envenomation in Indonesia

Abstract

Snakebite envenoming is one of the neglected tropical diseases and is still rarely studied in Indonesia. The high diversity of venomous snakes in Indonesia is one of the challenges. To overcome this, we consider that snake venomic research guided by phylogenetic relationships can serve valuable information that may contribute to snakebite mitigation. Here, we briefly introduce our recent study using HPLC-MS/MS to analyse the venom composition and variation across four Indonesian Trimeresurus. This adds more information on venom variation among Trimeresurus species within the close geographic origin, which congruent with their phylogenetic relationships. We also conducted a preliminary study to detect intraspecific variation between the venom of males and females of T. puniceus using SDS-PAGE. There is an addition of protein with a molecular weight of 13 kDa in the venom of male T. puniceus, while a protein with a molecular weight of 16 kDa is only detected in female venom. We summarize recent studies showing different factors that can affect venom variation between and within snake species. Finally, we discuss the importance of transdisciplinary research to understand snake venom variation and suggest future directions, particularly from a herpetological view, to mitigate human-snake conflict in Indonesia.