The monocled cobra () is among the most feared snakes in Southeast Asia due to its toxicity, which is predominantly derived from long-chain α-neurotoxins. The only specific treatment for snakebite envenoming is antivenom based on animal-derived polyclonal antibodies. Despite the lifesaving importance of these medicines, major limitations in safety, supply consistency, and efficacy create a need for improved treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the original version of this Article, the sixth sentence of the first paragraph of the Introduction incorrectly read 'Particularly, elapid antivenoms often have an unbalanced antibody content with relatively low amounts of antibodies against small neurotoxic venom components that have low immunogenicity, which often leads to low immune cgqtns in production animals'. The correct version states 'responses' instead of 'cgqtns'. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) is one of the most feared snake species of the African savanna. It has a potent, fast-acting neurotoxic venom comprised of dendrotoxins and α-neurotoxins associated with high fatality in untreated victims. Current antivenoms are both scarce on the African continent and present a number of drawbacks as they are derived from the plasma of hyper-immunized large mammals.
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