Identification of enzymes and toxins in venoms of Indian cobra and Russell's viper after starch gel electrophoresis.

Snake venoms are known to contain a number of enzymes (l-3). Attempts have been made to correlate the toxicity of snake venoms with their enzymic activity, e.g. between nucleases and toxicity (4), phospholipase A and neurotoxic action of cobra venom (5), and proteolytic and coagulant activity and toxicity (6-8). Most of these studies have been carried out on whole venoms or after elimination of some components by heat treatment (5). A number of methods, such as electrophoresis (9), paper electrophoresis (lo), and quite recently, ion exchange resins such as Amberlite IRC 50 (11) and cellulose ion-exchangers (12-14) have been used for fractionation. Ohsaka (15) has used electrophoresis on potato starch for separation of components of Habu venom, and Yang et al. (16, 17) have used a similar method for the fractionation of the venoms of Formosan cobra and Hyappoda. Yang et al. (17) found that the neurotoxic activity of cobra venom did not coincide with any of the enzymes tested by them. In the case of Hyappoda venom, they found that proteases and phosphatases occurred in the same fractions as the toxic components. We have studied the properties of venoms of Indian snakes, especially Indian cobra (Baja Izaja) and Russell’s viper (Vipera russelli). On a microscale we are able to obtain a fairly good separation of the components of both the venoms with the starch gel electrophoretic technique of Smithies (18). Use of paper and agar gel electrophoresis did not give sufficiently good separation of the components. We have worked out rapid methods of detection of the enzymic components with only small quantities of venoms. The present communication is a report of the results.