Abstract
It is now more than a century since Albert Calmette from the Institut Pasteur changed the world of envenomation by demonstrating that antibodies raised against animal venoms have the ability to treat human victims of previously fatal bites or stings. Moreover, the research initiated at that time effectively launched the discipline of toxicology, first leading to the search for toxic venom components, followed by the demonstration of venoms that also contained compounds of therapeutic value. Interest from pharmaceutical companies to treat envenomation is, however, declining, mainly for economic reasons, and hence, the World Health Organization has reclassified this public health issue to be a highest priority concern. While the production, storage, and safety of antivenom sera suffer from major inconveniences, alternative chemical and technological approaches to the problem of envenomation need to be considered that bypass the use of antibodies for toxin neutralization. Herein, we review an emerging strategy that relies on the use of aptamers and discuss how close—or otherwise—we are to finding a viable alternative to the use of antibodies for the therapy of human envenomation.
Highlights
The history of antivenom sera began with a French doctor, Albert Calmette, who, at the end of the 19th century, began immunization work using cobra venom with rabbits as animal models [1]
He described several immunization strategies; the most reputed, which is still in use today, was the administration of increasing venom concentrations in order to develop antitoxin antibodies. The novelty of this investigation was the fact that the serum of injected animals had both preventive and therapeutic properties, since injection of serum from an immunized rabbit to a control rabbit prevented the toxic signs of envenomation
Vital Brazil, who became the first director of the Butantan institute in São Paulo, developed the concept of polyvalent serum to enlarge its therapeutic value against the venoms from several species of snakes
Summary
The history of antivenom sera began with a French doctor, Albert Calmette, who, at the end of the 19th century, began immunization work using cobra venom with rabbits as animal models [1] In this work, he described several immunization strategies; the most reputed, which is still in use today, was the administration of increasing venom concentrations in order to develop antitoxin antibodies. He described several immunization strategies; the most reputed, which is still in use today, was the administration of increasing venom concentrations in order to develop antitoxin antibodies The novelty of this investigation was the fact that the serum of injected animals had both preventive and therapeutic properties, since injection of serum from an immunized rabbit to a control rabbit prevented the toxic signs of envenomation (for a complete description of the career endeavors of Albert Calmette, see [2]). For accurate reviews on the history of antivenoms, we refer readers to references [14,15,16]
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