Biochemistry of Cone Snail toxin activation

Cone snails use venom to capture prey for food and for defense against predators. The venom is composed of over 100 active peptides that target specific receptors in the nervous system. Several of these peptides have the potential to become medicine for treatment of pain, depression, seizures, and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer 019s disease and MS. In our efforts to understand how cone snails make toxins, we want to purify the Astacin-like protease thought to execute the final steps in toxin activation. Initial trials indicated that purification from bacteria expressing the protease would be challenging. We applied a sparse matrix search to find buffer conditions (pH, salt, metal ions, additives) that maximized yield of soluble Astacin-like protease.