Venom proteomic analysis of medically important Nigerian viper Echis ocellatus and Bitis arietans snake species

Emeka John Dingwoke; Fatima Amin Adamude; Gadija Mohamed; Ashwil Klein; Aliyu Salihu; Mujitaba Suleiman Abubakar; Abdullahi Balarabe Sallau

doi:10.1016/j.bbrep.2021.101164

Venom proteomic analysis of medically important Nigerian viper Echis ocellatus and Bitis arietans snake species

Biochem Biophys Rep. 2021 Nov 2:28:101164. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrep.2021.101164. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Emeka John Dingwoke^{1

2}, Fatima Amin Adamude^{3

2}, Gadija Mohamed⁴, Ashwil Klein⁵, Aliyu Salihu¹, Mujitaba Suleiman Abubakar^{6

2}, Abdullahi Balarabe Sallau^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
² Venom, Antivenom and Natural Toxins Research Centre, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
³ Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Federal University, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.
⁴ Agri-Food Systems and Omics, Post-Harvest and Agro-Processing Technologies, Agricultural Research Council, Infrutec-Nietvoorbij, Stellenbosch, 7599, South Africa.
⁵ Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Proteomics Research Unit, University of Western Cape, South Africa.
⁶ Department of Pharmacognosy and Drug Development, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.

Abstract

Snakebite envenoming remains a neglected tropical disease which poses severe health hazard, especially for the rural inhabitants in Africa. In Nigeria, vipers are responsible for the highest number of deaths. Hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled with LC-MS/MS was used to analyze the crude venoms of Echis ocellatus (Carpet viper) and Bitis arietans (Puff adder) in order to understand their venom proteomic identities. Results obtained revealed that gel-free proteomic analysis of the crude venoms led to the identification of 85 and 79 proteins, respectively. Seventy-eight (78) proteins were common between the two snake species with a 91.8% similarity score. The identified proteins belong to 18 protein families in E. ocellatus and 14 protein families in B. arietans. Serine proteases (22.31%) and metalloproteinases (21.06%) were the dominant proteins in the venom of B. arietans; while metalloproteinases (34.84%), phospholipase A₂s (21.19%) and serine proteases (15.50%) represent the major toxins in the E. ocellatus venom. Other protein families such as three-finger toxins and cysteine-rich venom proteins were detected in low proportions. This study provides an insight into the venom proteomic analysis of the two Nigerian viper species, which could be useful in identifying the toxin families to be neutralized in case of envenomation.

Keywords: Bitis arietans; Echis ocellatus; Mass spectrometry; Neglected tropical disease; Proteomic; Snake venom; Snakebite; Venom-based antivenom; Viperidae.