Venoms and Ion Channels in Drug Discovery

Dear Colleagues,

Venomous animals are specialized predators that have evolved the most sophisticated peptide chemistry and neuropharmacology for their own biological purposes by producing venoms that contain a structural and functional diversity of neurotoxins. Venoms from marine and terrestrial animals (cone snails, scorpions, spiders, snakes, centipedes, cnidarian, etc.) can be seen as an untapped cocktail of biologically active compounds, being increasingly recognized as new emerging source of peptide-based therapeutics. Ion channels account for the action potential of excitable cells, and their malfunction relates to many diseases. As such, they form an important drug target. Venoms and their components have shown to be highly selective ligands for a wide range of ion channels and receptors. Therefore, neurotoxins have proved valuable tools for unravelling ion channel structure and function. Moreover, neurotoxins represent interesting lead compounds for peptide-based drug-discovery.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive look at venoms and their components and will focus on the mechanism of action, structure–function, and evolution of pharmacological interesting venom components, including but not limited to recent developments relating to the emergence of venoms as an underutilized source of highly evolved bioactive peptides with clinical potential.

Dr. Steve Peigneur
Guest Editor

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