New mass spectrometry based methodology to sequence a whole snake venom

Animal venoms are complex chemical cocktails, comprising wide ranges of biologically active reticulated peptides that target with high selectivity and efficacy varieties of membrane receptors. Assuming the fact that each of the 170,000 venomous species reported can produce more than 250 bioactive toxins, at least 40,000,000 bioactive peptides and proteins may be discovered.
Among the four described species of mambas, Eastern Jameson’s mamba (Dendroaspis jamesonii kaimosae) venom is the less characterized since only 9 peptides are referenced in database. This work aims at developing a new strategy devoted to the deep analysis of animal venoms.

Our approach consists in a first separation of the venom using cation exchange chromatography. Each primary fraction is then purified a second time by classical RP-HPLC. A total of 328 fractions, containing amongst 1 and 4 toxins, are finally collected. MALDI-MS analysis of each fraction is done in order (1) to obtain information about masses and (2) to obtain sequences of toxins thanks to MALDI-In Source Decay (ISD) dissociation coupled with on MALDI target plate reduction of the peptides.
ISD has already been demonstrated efficient for toxin sequencing, and especially when using 1,5-DAN as reducing matrix. ISD yields to sequences that cover more than 50% of peptide sequences by series of singly charged c-type ions. Thanks to this methodology, we were able to obtain 85% of satisfactory results i.e. spectra giving quite long tags of amino acids (up to 20 residues). As a way to validate our method, a tag coming from ISD spectrum interpretation has found a match in database for an Eastern Jameson’s mamba toxin. The global sequence has then been obtained by extrapolation on the ISD spectrum.
Since ISD spectra are simpler than classical MS/MS spectra, automation of spectra interpretation, difficult with other fragmentation techniques (CID, ETD…), is implementable.
In the near future, sequences obtained with this approach will be used to direct tests of biological activity through sequence homologies with already known ligands for different kinds of membrane receptors.