Phosphodiesterases (PDEs) from Snake Venoms: Therapeutic Applications.

Background: Snake venom, a highly poisonous and active venomous snake's secretion, is a complex mixture of inorganic cations, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, peptides, toxins and hydrolytic enzymes of importance including Phosphodiesterases (PDEs). These snake venom hydrolytic enzymes interfere in different physiological processes. Snake venom PDEs have several roles to metabolize extracellular nucleotides and to regulate nucleotide based intercellular signalling mechanisms including platelet aggregation, which can lead to death and debilitation in cardiac arrest and strokes in patients having cerebro-vascular and cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and atherosclerosis which is the primary cause of life-threatening diseases such as, stroke and myocardial- infarction.