How a tarantula can help treat infections:Avicularia juruensis’s theraphotoxins that also act as antimicrobials

Abstract

Short abstractConsidering that there are still many species little-studied, this work aimed to analyze the venom of the spiderAvicularia juruensissearching for antimicrobial peptides. Using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, microbial growth inhibition assay, transcriptomics, and proteomics approaches we identified three antimicrobial peptides: Avilin, Juruin_2, and Juruenine. All of them showed similarities with neurotoxins that act on ion channels and, probably, they have the ICK motif. The study of animal venoms is of great importance to carry out the characterization of unknown components and that may have a biotechnological application, in special venoms from spiders that are from less studied families.Spiders are the most successful group of venomous animals, comprising more than 50,350 species distributed in all terrestrial habitats. One strategy that facility their broad distribution is the production of elaborate venoms, which are composed of inorganic salts, organic molecules with low molecular mass, free amino acids, small polypeptides, linear peptides, nucleotides, disulfide-rich peptides, enzymes, and high molecular mass proteins. Considering that there are still many species little-studied, this work aimed to analyze the venom of the mygalomorph spiderAvicularia juruensissearching for new antimicrobial peptides. Using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, microbial growth inhibition assay, transcriptomics, and proteomics approaches we identified three antimicrobial peptides that were named Avilin, Juruin_2, and Juruenine. All of them showed similarities with neurotoxins that act on ion channels and, probably, they have the ICK motif in their structure. The ICK fold seems to be conserved in several venomous animal lineages and presents elevated functional diversity, as well as gives stability to the toxins. The study of animal venoms is of great importance to carry out the characterization of unknown components and that may have a biotechnological application (like the antimicrobial peptides), in special venoms from spiders that are from less studied families.