%0 Journal Article
%T Scorpion Peptides: Potential Use for New Drug Development
%A BenNasr Hmed
%A Hammami Turky Serria
%A Zeghal Khaled Mounir
%J Journal of Toxicology
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/958797
%X Several peptides contained in scorpion fluids showed diverse array of biological activities with high specificities to their targeted sites. Many investigations outlined their potent effects against microbes and showed their potential to modulate various biological mechanisms that are involved in immune, nervous, cardiovascular, and neoplastic diseases. Because of their important structural and functional diversity, it is projected that scorpion-derived peptides could be used to develop new specific drugs. This review summarizes relevant findings improving their use as valuable tools for new drugs development. 1. Introduction Recently, natural products are sought with great concern for their contributions in basic researches for new drugs discovery [1]. In 2004, Clardy and Walsh reappraised that 23% of newly generated drugs with approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relied on naturally occurring substances [2]. In this issue, many toxins with high specificity to target cellular elements are sought to be used against many diseases [3]. To optimize their contributions as medicinal tools, outlining these substances pharmacognosy is a necessity [4]. Several decades ago, scorpion originating-peptides have been isolated and purified and gained much attention for their attributes in specifically targeting various ions channels and cell membrane components. These arachnid secretions amount to 800 isolated and characterized native and recombinant biologically active polypeptides, and most of them are endowed with strongly stabilized structure, but their total number was estimated to reach 100£¿000 different ones [5]. Eventually, they might offer a promising scaffold for new drugs development [6¨C11]. Thus, reviewing this emergent quality of scorpion derivatives constitutes the goal of this paper. 2. Vernacular and Toxicology More than 1500 different known scorpion species have been described, around the world [12]. Classically, these arachnids are divided into two different groups, alongside with their geographical distribution: the old and the new world scorpions. The formers are essentially distributed in Africa, Asia, and Southern America. They are gathered into one family, the Buthidae clustering species with triangular-shaped sternum. However, new world scorpions, with a pentagonal-shaped sternum, are widely dispersed in Europe, Asia, and America. This suborder, namely, the Chactidae, comprises six different families (Scorpionidae, Diplocentridae, Chactidae, Vaejovidae, Bothriuridae, and Chaerilidae). It is worth mentioning that most
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jt/2013/958797/