Antimicrobials from Venomous Animals: An Overview

Tania Yacoub (1) , Mohamad Rima (2) , Marc Karam (1) , Jean-Marc Sabatier (3) , Ziad Fajloun (4)

1 UOB - University of Balamand [Liban]
2 IGBMC - Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire
3 INP - Institut de neurophysiopathologie
4 LU - Lebanese University [Beirut]

The inappropriate or excessive use of antimicrobial agents caused an emerging public health problem due to the resulting resistance developed by microbes. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop effective antimicrobial strategies relying on natural agents with different mechanisms of action. Nature has been known to offer many bioactive compounds, in the form of animal venoms, algae, and plant extracts that were used for decades in traditional medicine. Animal venoms and secretions have been deeply studied for their wealth in pharmaceutically promising molecules. As such, they were reported to exhibit many biological activities of interest, such as antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory activities. In this review, we summarize recent findings on the antimicrobial activities of crude animal venoms/secretions, and describe the peptides that are responsible of these activities.

Keywords: snake; frog; bee; scorpion; ant; spider; antimicrobial activities

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Biochemistry, Molecular Biology; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Cellular Biology

Tania Yacoub, Mohamad Rima, Marc Karam, Jean-Marc Sabatier, Ziad Fajloun. Antimicrobials from Venomous Animals: An Overview. Molecules, 2020, 25 (10), pp.2402. ⟨10.3390/molecules25102402⟩. ⟨hal-03170762⟩