Screening the antimicrobial properties of snake venoms: an iterative fractionation approach
Alice J. Fraser, Mark C. Wilkinson, Conor J. Meehan, Nicholas R. Casewell, Adam P. Roberts, Alasdair T.M. Hubbard · 2026
Read Screening the antimicrobial properties of snake venoms: an iterative fractionation approach by Alice J. Fraser, Mark C. Wilkinson, Conor J. Meehan, Nicholas R. Casewell, Adam P. Roberts, Alasdair T.M. Hubbard (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13555706.txt.
Description
Alice Fraser and co-authors (2026) hunt for new antibiotics inside snake venom, as drug-resistant bacteria outpace the pharmacy. Venoms are cocktails of proteins and peptides refined by evolution to act on other animals' bodies, and some components kill microbes. The team screened fourteen venoms against two problem bacteria, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Six venoms nearly shut the bacteria down. Filtering through dialysis showed the active agents in four were large molecules, above the cutoff size, not small chemicals.
Two cobra venoms, from Naja mossambica and Naja subfulva, were split into protein fractions. Some fractions showed subtle effects, others strong killing. The method is iterative: screen, split, test again, narrowing from whole venom toward single active proteins. Each round concentrates the search. The authors present the pipeline as a practical route from a feared natural product to candidate drugs.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Alice J. Fraser, Mark C. Wilkinson, Conor J. Meehan, Nicholas R. Casewell, Adam P. Roberts, Alasdair T.M. Hubbard |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 26 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |