Bioactive scorpion peptides: a powerful molecular tools for ion modulation in excitable cells

By means of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) the soluble venoms of the Amazoniam scorpion Tityus cambridgei, Mexican scorpion Centruroides limpidus and North-African scorpion Androctonus australis, were fractioned into over 50 different components for each venom. Electrophysiological screening of many of these peptides has been carried out on voltage-dependent ion channels of cultured neuronal cells by use of the patch-clamp technique in the whole-cell configuration. It has been found that some toxins affect selectively, with high affinity, Na/sup +/, K/sup +/ and Ca/sup ++/ channels. These new peptides will be important for future studies of their biophysical, physiological and pharmacological properties.