Poster Presentation 11th Asia-Pacific Congress of the International Society on Toxinology 2021

Anticancer properties of low molecular weight toxins from Russell’s Viper Venom (RVV) (#112)

Navodipa Bhattacharya 1 , Angshuman Sarkar 1 , Dibakar Chakrabarty 1
  1. Biological Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science K K Birla Goa Campus, Vasco da gama, Goa, India

Snake venom is a pool of different toxins having properties like hemotoxicity, cytotoxicity, neurotoxicity, etc. Most of these toxins are very specific in their mode of action and receptor selection. Therefore, the animal toxins are attractive candidates for future drug discovery. Several anti-cancer molecules have been purified from various snake venoms. Russell’s Viper Venom (RVV) is well known for its cytotoxic and hemotoxic effects.  T1 and T2 are two small molecular weight (~7kDa and 1.5kDa respectively) positively charged toxins purified from RVV, showing cytotoxicity in human breast cancer cells MCF7. Both of the toxins showed visible morphological changes in cancer cells causing reduced cell-cell attachment and change in shape. The number of live cells decreased drastically upon exposure of both T1 and T2 for 24 hour and 48 hours in a dose dependent manner confirming the cytotoxic nature of the toxins. Cell viability and wound healing capacity also decreased in a dose dependent manner for both the toxins confirming the restriction of cancer cell multiplication. Confocal microscopic analysis showed clear breakage of nuclei in the toxin treated cells undergoing apoptosis. Cytotoxic effects of both T1 and T2 were compared with same dosages of whole RVV and were found to be similar. Detail studies are currently under way to understand the mechanisms of these toxins.