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Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming

Snakebite is a neglected tropical disease that causes considerable death and disability in the tropical world. Although snakebite can cause a variety of pathologies in victims, haemotoxic effects are particularly common and are typically characterised by haemorrhage and/or venom-induced consumption...

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Autores principales: Alomran, Nessrin, Chinnappan, Raja, Alsolaiss, Jaffer, Casewell, Nicholas R., Zourob, Mohammed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9318713/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35878207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14070469
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author Alomran, Nessrin
Chinnappan, Raja
Alsolaiss, Jaffer
Casewell, Nicholas R.
Zourob, Mohammed
author_facet Alomran, Nessrin
Chinnappan, Raja
Alsolaiss, Jaffer
Casewell, Nicholas R.
Zourob, Mohammed
author_sort Alomran, Nessrin
collection PubMed
description Snakebite is a neglected tropical disease that causes considerable death and disability in the tropical world. Although snakebite can cause a variety of pathologies in victims, haemotoxic effects are particularly common and are typically characterised by haemorrhage and/or venom-induced consumption coagulopathy. Antivenoms are the mainstay therapy for treating the toxic effects of snakebite, but despite saving thousands of lives annually, these therapies are associated with limited cross-snake species efficacy due to venom variation, which ultimately restricts their therapeutic utility to particular geographical regions. In this study, we sought to explore the potential of ssDNA aptamers as toxin-specific inhibitory alternatives to antibodies. As a proof of principle model, we selected snake venom serine protease toxins, which are responsible for contributing to venom-induced coagulopathy following snakebite envenoming, as our target. Using SELEX technology, we selected ssDNA aptamers against recombinantly expressed versions of the fibrinogenolytic SVSPs ancrod from the venom of C. rhodostoma and batroxobin from B. atrox. From the resulting pool of specific ssDNA aptamers directed against each target, we identified candidates that exhibited low nanomolar binding affinities to their targets. Downstream aptamer-linked immobilised sorbent assay, fibrinogenolysis, and coagulation profiling experiments demonstrated that the candidate aptamers were able to recognise native and recombinant SVSP toxins and inhibit the toxin- and venom-induced prolongation of plasma clotting times and the consumption of fibrinogen, with inhibitory potencies highly comparable to commercial polyvalent antivenoms. Our findings demonstrate that rationally selected toxin-specific aptamers can exhibit broad in vitro cross-reactivity against toxin isoforms found in different snake venoms and are capable of inhibiting toxins in pathologically relevant in vitro and ex vivo models of venom activity. These data highlight the potential utility of ssDNA aptamers as novel toxin-inhibiting therapeutics of value for tackling snakebite envenoming.
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spelling pubmed-93187132022-07-27 Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming Alomran, Nessrin Chinnappan, Raja Alsolaiss, Jaffer Casewell, Nicholas R. Zourob, Mohammed Toxins (Basel) Article Snakebite is a neglected tropical disease that causes considerable death and disability in the tropical world. Although snakebite can cause a variety of pathologies in victims, haemotoxic effects are particularly common and are typically characterised by haemorrhage and/or venom-induced consumption coagulopathy. Antivenoms are the mainstay therapy for treating the toxic effects of snakebite, but despite saving thousands of lives annually, these therapies are associated with limited cross-snake species efficacy due to venom variation, which ultimately restricts their therapeutic utility to particular geographical regions. In this study, we sought to explore the potential of ssDNA aptamers as toxin-specific inhibitory alternatives to antibodies. As a proof of principle model, we selected snake venom serine protease toxins, which are responsible for contributing to venom-induced coagulopathy following snakebite envenoming, as our target. Using SELEX technology, we selected ssDNA aptamers against recombinantly expressed versions of the fibrinogenolytic SVSPs ancrod from the venom of C. rhodostoma and batroxobin from B. atrox. From the resulting pool of specific ssDNA aptamers directed against each target, we identified candidates that exhibited low nanomolar binding affinities to their targets. Downstream aptamer-linked immobilised sorbent assay, fibrinogenolysis, and coagulation profiling experiments demonstrated that the candidate aptamers were able to recognise native and recombinant SVSP toxins and inhibit the toxin- and venom-induced prolongation of plasma clotting times and the consumption of fibrinogen, with inhibitory potencies highly comparable to commercial polyvalent antivenoms. Our findings demonstrate that rationally selected toxin-specific aptamers can exhibit broad in vitro cross-reactivity against toxin isoforms found in different snake venoms and are capable of inhibiting toxins in pathologically relevant in vitro and ex vivo models of venom activity. These data highlight the potential utility of ssDNA aptamers as novel toxin-inhibiting therapeutics of value for tackling snakebite envenoming. MDPI 2022-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9318713/ /pubmed/35878207 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14070469 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Alomran, Nessrin
Chinnappan, Raja
Alsolaiss, Jaffer
Casewell, Nicholas R.
Zourob, Mohammed
Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title_full Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title_fullStr Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title_short Exploring the Utility of ssDNA Aptamers Directed against Snake Venom Toxins as New Therapeutics for Snakebite Envenoming
title_sort exploring the utility of ssdna aptamers directed against snake venom toxins as new therapeutics for snakebite envenoming
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9318713/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35878207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins14070469
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