CONCO

Work Package Leader: Philippe FAVREAU (Atheris Laboratories)

Participants: Atheris Laboratories, CEA, Jozef Stefan Institute

The Natural Library and Proteomics

A full map of the natural constituents of the venom is needed. A large batch of venom of the species undergoing genomic sequencing will be fractionated to enable in-depth studies of the natural compounds. The primary fractions of these venoms, constituting the "natural library", will be prepared for high-throughput screening of biological activities. Each of these fractions will then be sub-fractionated to extend the natural library to hundreds of sub-fractions that will be screened again. Positive hits with relevant biological activity will be submitted to purification down to homogeneity and characterised using the most recent developments in proteomic techniques, including three-dimensional bio-imaging of peptide mass fingerprint.

Furthermore, primary and secondary structures will be completed by de novo sequencing by mass spectrometry, Edman degradation, amino acid analyses and post-translational modifications elucidation. The proteomic data and the full list of all identified peptide and protein sequences will also be integrated to the Consortium's database.