Update (May 31): The paper described in this article was published May 23 in Microbiology Spectrum.
For years, researchers have been looking to animal venoms for the next generation of antibiotics. That’s because these chemical cocktails possess potent antimicrobial activities in addition to their dangerous physiological ones—a fact that has also led to the widespread idea that, despite being connected to the outside world, venom glands are sterile environments.
That’s simply not true, posits a November 5 biorXiv preprint. As the title neatly summarizes, “Microbial adaptation to venom is common in snakes and spiders.”
The research was led by Northumbria University RNA biologist Sterghios Moschos and venomologist Steve Trim, founder of the biotechnology company Venomtech, which aims to develop venom-based research tools and pharmaceuticals. It provides genetic and culture evidence that bacteria not only live in the venoms of several species of spiders and snakes, but are actively adapting to ...
