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. 1966 Jun;99(3):624–630. doi: 10.1042/bj0990624

Studies on sea-snake venoms. Crystallization of erabutoxins a and b from Laticauda semifasciata venom

N Tamiya 1,*, Hiroko Arai 1
PMCID: PMC1265051  PMID: 5964959

Abstract

1. The toxic principles in the venom of the sea-snake Laticauda semifasciata were separated into two components by CM-cellulose chromatography and obtained in crystalline forms. They were named `erabutoxins a and b'. 2. The homogeneity of each toxin was shown by rechromatography, by disk electrophoresis, by ultracentrifuging, by toxicity measurements before and after repeated crystallizations and by N-terminal analysis. 3. They had molecular weights of about 7000. Both of them contained 61 (or 62) amino acid residues/molecule. The only difference between erabutoxins a and b was that one of the aspartic acid (or asparagine) residues in erabutoxin a was replaced by a histidine residue in erabutoxin b. 4. Both of the toxins had LD50 values of 0·15μg./g. body wt. for mice and 0·07μg./g. for rats. It was shown with frog-muscle preparations that they acted on postsynaptic membrane to block neuromuscular transmission.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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