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

Characterization of stonefish venom (#128)

Silvia L Saggiomo 1 , Jamie E Seymour 1 , Norelle L Daly 1 , David T Wilson 1
  1. Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, Cairns, QLD, Australia

The genus Synanceia includes the most venomous fish species in the world, the stonefish. Their sting is known to be intensely painful and to induce local edema, whereas systemic symptoms include fever, hypotension, arrhythmia, pulmonary edema, respiratory difficulties and death. In humans, envenomation starts an acute immune defensive response, where a variety of innate signalling receptors are activated to eliminate or neutralise the threat. There have been limited studies on the molecular composition of stonefish venom, with a crystallographic study showing that stonustoxin, a large toxin from Synanceia horrida is a pore-forming protein. The present study, therefore, aimed at further characterising stonefish venom using analytical tools.