Investigating Antivenom Function and Cross-Reactivity – a Study of Antibodies and Their Targets

Venomous snakebites are regarded as one of the World’s most neglected tropical diseases/conditions with up to 2.5 million victims every year. The best-practice treatment is antivenom derived from the blood of large mammals (typically horses or sheep) immunized with venom of one or more snake species. The active toxin neutralizing components in antivenom are complex mixtures of antibodies (or fragments here of). The individual antibodies are adapted by the immune system of the production animal to bind specific to parts of each toxin used in the immunization procedure. In many cases antivenom is also able to neutralize some – or even all – toxic effects of snakebites from related snake species.