Abstract
The Australian funnel-web spider’s venom can be deadly to humans. But a small amount of one peptide in the arachnid’s poison arsenal has been found to protect the brain tissue of rodents after they’ve suffered a stroke. If the work holds true in humans, the venomous disulfide-rich peptide, called Hi1a, could complement current treatments for stroke victims (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2017, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1614728114). In most strokes, blood supply to the brain is blocked, leading to a shortage of oxygen and glucose. Brain cells start to die quickly in regions closest to the blockage, but over the course of hours to days, tissue located farther away begins to perish. It’s this more-distant tissue that stroke drugs aim to salvage. However, these protective therapeutics—also derived from spider venom—must be delivered within four hours. The new peptide, discovered by Lachlan D. Rash and Glenn F. King of the University of Queensland
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