Kbot55, purified from Buthus occitanus tunetanus venom, represents the first member of a novel α-KTx subfamily

In this study, Kbot55 has been subjected to a screening on ion channels expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. It was found that Kbot55 targets voltage-gated potassium channels with high affinity. Kbot55 shows very low amino acid identity with other scorpion potassium toxins and therefore was considered a bona fide novel type of scorpion toxin. Sequence alignment analysis indicated that Kbot55 is the first representative of the new α-Ktx31 subfamily and therefore was classified as α-Ktx31.1.

Source: Peptides - June 27, 2015 Category: Biochemistry Source Type: research