Pharmacological perspectives of snake venoms from Viperidae family

Abstract

Snake venom is a combination of many different proteins and enzymes. Many of these proteins are harmless to humans, but some are toxins. Snake venoms effects include pro- and anti-blood coagulation, neurotoxicity, mycotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, cardiotoxicity and necrotoxicity. This article has focused only on the principle components of viperidae venoms and their corresponding pharmacological actions on cells. Is was also discussed the advantages of enzymes like phospholipase A 2 , L-amino acid oxidase, and metalloprotease while non-enzymatic proteins include warprin family proteins, platelet aggregation factors and C-type lectin-like protein. Most recently, few public-domain snake venoms database are released which contains natural history notes, pictures of venomous snakes, distribution maps and information about each individual snake and its venom. Thus, we conclude that the given information in this review will be more useful for researchers to investigate novel human therapeutics from snake venoms.