Modern analytical size exclusion chromatography (SEC) is a suitable technique to separate venom toxin families according to their size characteristics. In this study, a method was developed to separate intact venom toxins from Bungarus multicinctus and Daboia russelii venoms via analytical SEC using volatile, non-salt-containing eluents for post-column mass spectrometry, coagulation bioassaying and high-throughput venomics. Two venoms were used to demonstrate the method developed. While the venom of Bungaurs multicinctus is known to exert anticoagulant effects on plasma, in this study, we showed the existence of both procoagulant toxins and anticoagulant toxins. For Daboia russelii venom, the method revealed characteristic procoagulant effects, with a 90 kDa mass toxin detected and matched with the Factor X-activating procoagulant heterotrimeric glycoprotein named RVV-X. The strong procoagulant effects for this toxin show that it was most likely eluted from size exclusion chromatography non-denatured. In conclusion, the separation of snake venom by size gave the opportunity to separate some specific toxin families from each other non-denatured, test these for functional bioactivities, detect the eluting mass on-line via mass spectrometry and identify the eluted toxins using high-throughput venomics.
Keywords: Bungarus multicinctus; Daboia russelii; coagulopathy; mass spectrometry; size exclusion chromatography; snake venomics; snakebite.