Heparin Identified as Cost-Effective Antidote for Cobra Venom
Scientists at the University of Sydney and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine have discovered that heparin, a commonly used blood thinner, can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom.
Cobras are responsible for thousands of deaths and many severe injuries each year due to venom-induced necrosis, which can lead to tissue death and amputations. Current antivenom treatments are costly and do not effectively treat necrosis at the bite site.
Breakthrough Using CRISPR Technology
Using CRISPR gene-editing technology, the research team, which included scientists from Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, and the UK, identified ways to block cobra venom. They found that heparin and related drugs could stop necrosis caused by cobra bites.
Ph.D. student and lead author Tian Du highlighted that heparin is inexpensive, widely available, and listed as an Essential Medicine by the World Health Organization (WHO). This makes it a promising candidate for rapid deployment as a cobra bite treatment following successful human trials.
Mechanism of Action
The team used CRISPR to identify human genes necessary for cobra venom to cause necrosis. They discovered that venom targets enzymes required to produce heparan and heparin, which are similar in structure and bind to the venom. This insight allowed them to create an antidote that acts as a “decoy” to neutralize the venom toxins.
Unlike traditional antivenoms, which are based on 19th-century technology, the heparinoid drugs act as a decoy by flooding the bite site with heparin sulfate or related molecules, binding to and neutralizing the venom toxins that cause tissue damage.
Potential Impact
Professor Nicholas Casewell from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine emphasized the significance of this finding, especially for rural communities in low- and middle-income countries, where snakebites remain a deadly neglected tropical disease.
The WHO aims to halve the global burden of snakebite by 2030. Professor Neely expressed hope that this new antidote could help achieve that goal by reducing death and injury from snakebites in some of the world’s poorest communities.
The research, published on the front cover of Science Translational Medicine, represents a systematic approach using CRISPR technology to find drugs that treat deadly venoms. The same approach was used by Professor Neely’s team in 2019 to identify an antidote for box jellyfish venom.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has been at the forefront of snakebite research for over 50 years, boasting some of the world’s leading snakebite experts and the largest collection of tropical venomous snakes in the UK.
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