Mass spectrometric identification and sequencing of novel conotoxins from vermivorous cone snail (), and preliminary screening of its venom for biological activities and .

Venom of , a vermivorous cone snail found abundantly in the southern coastal waters was studied to yield conotoxins through proteomic analysis. A total of 37 conotoxins (4 with single disulfide bonds, 20 with two disulfide bonds and 11 three disulfide-bonded peptides) were identified using mass spectrometric analysis. Among them, amino acid sequences of 11 novel conopeptides with one, two and three disulfides belonging to different classes were derived through manual sequencing.

Structure and allosteric activity of a single-disulfide conopeptide from at human α3β4 and α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.

Conopeptides are neurotoxic peptides in the venom of marine cone snails and have broad therapeutic potential for managing pain and other conditions. Here, we identified the single-disulfide peptides Czon1107 and Cca1669 from the venoms of and , respectively. We observed that Czon1107 strongly inhibits the human α3β4 (IC 15.