Review of the Mechanisms of Snake Venom Induced Pain: It's All about Location, Location, Location.

Pain-acute, chronic and debilitating-is the most feared neurotoxicity resulting from a survivable venomous snake bite. The purpose of this review is to present in a novel paradigm what we know about the molecular mechanisms responsible for pain after envenomation. Progressing from known pain modulating peptides and enzymes, to tissue level interactions with venom resulting in pain, to organ system level pain syndromes, to geographical level distribution of pain syndromes, the present work demonstrates that understanding the mechanisms responsible for pain is dependent on "location, location, location".

Mechanisms Responsible for the Anticoagulant Properties of Neurotoxic Venoms: A Viscoelastic Analysis.

Using thrombelastography to gain mechanistic insights, recent investigations have identified enzymes and compounds in and species' neurotoxic venoms that are anticoagulant in nature. The neurotoxic venoms of the four extant species of (the Black and green mambas) were noted to be anticoagulant in nature in human blood, but the mechanisms underlying these observations have never been explored. The venom proteomes of these venoms are unique, primarily composed of three finger toxins (3-FTx), Kunitz-type serine protease inhibitors (Kunitz-type SPI) and <7% metalloproteinases.