Scorpions belonging to the Buthidae family have traditionally drawn much of the biochemist’s attention due to the strong toxicity of their venoms. Scorpions not toxic to mammals, however, also have complex venoms. They have been shown to be an important source of bioactive peptides, some of them identified as potential drug candidates for the treatment of several emerging diseases and conditions. It is therefore important to characterize the large diversity of components found in the non-Buthidae venoms. As a contribution to this goal, this manuscript reports the construction and characterization of cDNA libraries from four scorpion species belonging to the Vaejovis genus of the Vaejovidae family: Vaejovis mexicanus, V. intrepidus, V. subcristatus and V. punctatus. Some sequences coding for channel-acting toxins were found, as expected, but the main transcribed genes in the glands actively producing venom were those coding for non disulfide-bridged peptides. The ESTs coding for putative channel-acting toxins, corresponded to sodium channel β toxins, to members of the potassium channel-acting α or κ families, and to calcium channel-acting toxins of the calcin family. Transcripts for scorpine-like peptides of two different lengths were found, with some of the species coding for the two kinds. One sequence coding for La1-like peptides, of yet unknown function, was found for each species. Finally, the most abundant transcripts corresponded to peptides belonging to the long chain multifunctional NDBP-2 family and to the short antimicrobials of the NDBP-4 family. This apparent venom composition is in correspondence with the data obtained to date for other non-Buthidae species. Our study constitutes the first approach to the characterization of the venom gland transcriptome for scorpion species belonging to the Vaejovidae family.

Sea anemone venom contains a complex and diverse arsenal of peptides and proteins of pharmacological and biotechnological interest, however, only venom from a few species has been explored from a global perspective to date. In the present study, we identified the polypeptides present in the venom of the sea anemone Anthopleura dowii Verrill, 1869 through a transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of the tentacles and the proteomic profile of the secreted mucus. In our transcriptomic results, we identified 261 polypeptides related to or predicted to be secreted in the venom, including proteases, neurotoxins that could act as either potassium (K⁺) or sodium (Na⁺) channels inhibitors, protease inhibitors, phospholipases A2, and other polypeptides. Our proteomic data allowed the identification of 156 polypeptides—48 exclusively identified in the mucus, 20 in the tentacles, and 88 in both protein samples. Only 23 polypeptides identified by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) were related to the venom and 21 exclusively identified in the mucus, most corresponding to neurotoxins and hydrolases. Our data contribute to the knowledge of evolutionary and venomic analyses of cnidarians, particularly of sea anemones.

Actinoporins (APs) are a family of pore-forming toxins (PFTs) from sea anemones. These biomolecules exhibit the ability to exist as soluble monomers within an aqueous medium or as constitutively open oligomers in biological membranes. Through their conformational plasticity, actinoporins are considered good candidate molecules to be included for the rational design of molecular tools, such as immunotoxins directed against tumor cells and stochastic biosensors based on nanopores to analyze unique DNA or protein molecules. Additionally, the ability of these proteins to bind to sphingomyelin (SM) facilitates their use for the design of molecular probes to identify SM in the cells. The immunomodulatory activity of actinoporins in liposomal formulations for vaccine development has also been evaluated. In this review, we describe the potential of actinoporins for use in the development of molecular tools that could be used for possible medical and biotechnological applications.