Structural-functional characteristics of toxins from spiders of the araneidae family

With the aid of a series of chromatographic operations we have isolated 14 individual tow-molecular-mass compounds (M_T — 624-744 Da) blocking postsynaptic glutamate and acetylcholine receptors from the venoms of species of spiders of the family Araneidae. It has been shown that from their structural characteristics and the nature of their action they can be divided into two families differing by their chromophoric groups and the degree of reversibility of their interaction with various receptors.Translated from Khimiya Prirodnykh Soedinenii, No. 6, pp. 916–920, November–December, 1996. Original article submitted March 18, 1996.