Innovative Immunization Strategies for Antivenom Development

Erick Bermúdez-Méndez, Albert Fuglsang-Madsen, Sofie Føns, Bruno Lomonte, José María Gutiérrez, Andreas Hougaard Laustsen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Snakes, scorpions, and spiders are venomous animals that pose a threat to human health, and severe envenomings from the bites or stings of these animals must be treated with antivenom. Current antivenoms are based on plasma-derived immunoglobulins or immunoglobulin fragments from hyper-immunized animals. Although these medicines have been life-saving for more than 120 years, opportunities to improve envenoming therapy exist. In the later decades, new biotechnological tools have been applied with the aim of improving the efficacy, safety, and affordability of antivenoms. Within the avenues explored, novel immunization strategies using synthetic peptide epitopes, recombinant toxins (or toxoids), or DNA strings as immunogens have demonstrated potential for generating antivenoms with high therapeutic antibody titers and broad neutralizing capacity. Furthermore, these approaches circumvent the need for venom in the production process of antivenoms, thereby limiting some of the complications associated with animal captivity and venom collection. Finally, an important benefit of innovative immunization approaches is that they are often compatible with existing antivenom manufacturing setups. In this review, we compile all reported studies examining venom-independent innovative immunization strategies for antivenom development. In addition, a brief description of toxin families of medical relevance found in snake, scorpion, and spider venoms is presented, as well as how biochemical, bioinformatic, and omics tools could aid the development of next-generation antivenoms.
Original languageEnglish
Article number452
JournalToxins
Volume10
Issue number11
ISSN2072-6651
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • DNA immunization
  • Animal envenoming
  • Antivenom development
  • Bioinformatics
  • High-density peptide microarray technology
  • Immunization
  • Neutralization
  • Omics technologies
  • Recombinant toxin
  • Scorpion envenoming
  • Snakebite envenoming
  • Spider envenoming
  • Synthetic epitope

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