芋螺毒素分子生物学研究进展

RESEARCH ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF CONO- TOXINS

从海洋软体动物芋螺中分离纯化的芋螺毒素是一类具有特异生物活性的小肽神经毒素。目前芋螺毒素一方面作为神经生物学的重要分子探针正广泛应用于相关靶受体的基础研究中,另一方面则用于研制特异诊断试剂及疗效特异的新药,并作为分子模型用于新药设计。研究涉及蛋白质化学、化学、药理学、电生理及分子生物学等诸多领域。本文综述了近年芋螺毒素分子生物学研究的进展。

Conotoxins purified from marine molluscs,the cone snails(Conus)are a kind of small peptide neurotoxins, which show high biological activity for a particular receptor protein target. Conotoxins are widely used either in the basic research of receptor in neurophysi-ology as standard molecular probes or in medical diagnosis and in preparing novel drugs with specific therapeutic efficacy. Otherwise ,Conotoxins are still used in drug design as molecular model .Research of conotoxins involves chemistry,protein chemistry,pharmacology,molecular biology,electrophysiology and so on .This article summarizes the research advances in molecular biology of conotoxin in most recent years.