Do Antibiotics Potentiate Proteases in Hemotoxic Snake Venoms?

Christoffer V Sørensen,Cecilie Knudsen,Eliane C Arantes,Konstantinos Kalogeropoulos,Cristina Gutiérrez-Jiménez,Manuela B Pucca,Karla Bordon,Ulrich Auf Dem Keller,Andreas H Laustsen

doi:10.3390/toxins12040240

Christoffer V Sørensen, Cecilie Knudsen + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins12040240

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Abstract

Antibiotics are often administered with antivenom following snakebite envenomings in order to avoid secondary bacterial infections. However, to this date, no studies have evaluated whether antibiotics may have undesirable potentiating effects on snake venom. Herein, we demonstrate that four commonly used antibiotics affect the enzymatic activities of proteolytic snake venom toxins in two different in vitro assays. Similar findings in vivo could have clinical implications for snakebite management and require further examination.

Highlights

Snakebite envenoming is a serious medical emergency, which can cause a number of life-threatening toxic effects, but which can lead to secondary infections due the introduction of pathogenic bacteria at the bite site
8 μg/mL C. adamanteus whole venom was used as positive control, and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) was used as negative control
C. adamanteus whole venom (A–D) or 6 μg/mL gyroxin (E–H) in the presence of varying concentrations of kanamycin (A,E), ampicillin (B,F), cloxacillin (C,G), and ampiclox (D,H). 8 μg/mL C. adamanteus whole venom was used as positive control and PBS was used as negative control

Summary

Introduction

Snakebite envenoming is a serious medical emergency, which can cause a number of life-threatening toxic effects, but which can lead to secondary infections due the introduction of pathogenic bacteria at the bite site. While the toxic effects are often treated with antivenom, the secondary infections are typically treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics are sometimes administered prophylactically to snakebite victims, even under conditions different from those recommended by the WHO [2,3,4]. This study aims at investigating, for the first time, the effect of antibiotics on snake venom toxins. It was investigated whether antibiotics may potentiate snake venom serine protease activity, as unpublished serendipitous results from our group suggest that this might be the case

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