Title

Authors

Affiliation

¹Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life and Earth Science, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205, Bangladesh; ²Assistant Professor, Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi -6205, Bangladesh; ³Professor, Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205, Bangladesh

Email

reza.gen@ru.ac.bd; *Corresponding author

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received August 26, 2014; Accepted September 20, 2014; Published October 30, 2014

Snake venoms are cocktails comprising combinations of different proteins, peptides, enzymes and toxins. Snake toxins have diverse characteristics having different molecular configuration, structure and mode of action. Many toxins derived from snake venom have distinct pharmacological activities. Venom from Bungarus fasciatus (commonly known as banded krait) is a species of elapid snake found on the South East Asia and Indian sub-continent, mainly contains neurotoxins. Beta bungartotoxin is the major fraction of Bungarus venom and particularly act pre-synaptically by obstructing neurotransmitter release. This toxin in other snake species functionally forms a heterodimer containing two different subunits (A and B). Dimerization of these two chains is a pre-requisite for the proper functionality of this protein. However, B. fasciatus bungartotoxin contains only B chain and their structural orientation in yet to be resolved. Therefore, it is of interest to describe the predicted structure model of the toxin for functional insights. In this work we analyzed the neurotoxic nature, their alignments, secondary and three dimensional structures, functions, active sites and stability with the help of different bioinformatical tools. A comprehensive analysis of the predicted model provides approaching to the functional interpretation of its molecular action.

Keywords

Snake venom, Bungarotoxin, 3D structure, Bioinformatics

Citation

Roly et al. Bioinformation 10(10): 617-622 (2014)
 

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.