TY - JOUR
T1 - V-ToCs (Venom toxin clustering): A tool for the investigation of sequence and structure similarities in snake venom toxins
AU - Kalogeropoulos, Konstantinos
AU - Rosca, Vlad
AU - O'Brien, Carol
AU - Christensen, Charlotte Risager
AU - Grahadi, Rahmat
AU - Sørensen, Christoffer Vinther
AU - Overath, Max D.
AU - Espi, Diego Ruiz
AU - Jenkins, David E.
AU - dem Keller, Ulrich auf
AU - Laustsen, Andreas H.
AU - Fryer, Thomas J.
AU - Jenkins, Timothy P.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Recently, there has been a major push toward the development of next-generation treatments against snakebite envenoming. However, unlike current antivenoms that rely on animal-derived polyclonal antibodies, most of these novel approaches are reliant on an in-depth understanding of the over 2,000 known snake venom toxins. Indeed, by identifying similarities (i.e., conserved epitopes) across these different toxins, it is possible to design cross-reactive treatments, such as broadly-neutralising antibodies, that target these similarities. Therefore, in this project, we built an automated pipeline that generates sequence and structural distance matrices and homology trees across all available snake venom toxin sequences and structures. To facilitate analysis, we also developed a user-friendly and high-throughput visualisation tool, coined “Venom TOxin CluStering” (V-ToCs). This tool allows researchers to easily investigate sequence and structure patterns in SVTs for a wide array of purposes, such as elucidating toxin evolution, and will also hopefully help guide the discovery and development of increasingly broadly-neutralising antivenoms in the near future.
AB - Recently, there has been a major push toward the development of next-generation treatments against snakebite envenoming. However, unlike current antivenoms that rely on animal-derived polyclonal antibodies, most of these novel approaches are reliant on an in-depth understanding of the over 2,000 known snake venom toxins. Indeed, by identifying similarities (i.e., conserved epitopes) across these different toxins, it is possible to design cross-reactive treatments, such as broadly-neutralising antibodies, that target these similarities. Therefore, in this project, we built an automated pipeline that generates sequence and structural distance matrices and homology trees across all available snake venom toxin sequences and structures. To facilitate analysis, we also developed a user-friendly and high-throughput visualisation tool, coined “Venom TOxin CluStering” (V-ToCs). This tool allows researchers to easily investigate sequence and structure patterns in SVTs for a wide array of purposes, such as elucidating toxin evolution, and will also hopefully help guide the discovery and development of increasingly broadly-neutralising antivenoms in the near future.
KW - Snake toxins
KW - Sequence similarity
KW - Structural similarity
KW - Open access tool
KW - Toxinology
KW - AF2
U2 - 10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.108088
DO - 10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.108088
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 39222754
SN - 0041-0101
VL - 250
JO - Toxicon
JF - Toxicon
M1 - 108088
ER -