Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Rima, Mohamad
• Alavi Naini, Seyedeh Maryam
• Karam, Marc
• Sadek, Riyad
• Sabatier, Jean-Marc
• Fajloun, Ziad

Titel

Vipers of the Middle East: A Rich Source of Bioactive Molecules

Ist Teil von

• Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 2018-10, Vol.23 (10), p.2721

Ort / Verlag

Switzerland: MDPI AG

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Snake venom serves as a tool of defense against threat and helps in prey digestion. It consists of a mixture of enzymes, such as phospholipase A2, metalloproteases, and l-amino acid oxidase, and toxins, including neurotoxins and cytotoxins. Beside their toxicity, venom components possess many pharmacological effects and have been used to design drugs and as biomarkers of diseases. Viperidae is one family of venomous snakes that is found nearly worldwide. However, three main vipers exist in the Middle Eastern region: , , and . The venoms of these vipers have been the subject of many studies and are considered as a promising source of bioactive molecules. In this review, we present an overview of these three vipers, with a special focus on their venom composition as well as their biological activities, and we discuss further frameworks for the exploration of each venom.