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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Toxic Proteins and Peptides

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Many animals produce poisonous substances which, even at a relatively low dose, are deleterious or lethal to other organisms, including man. They may serve on the one hand to disable or kill prey, or on the other hand as a protection or defence against predators. These substances are mostly produced by special glands, and both poison reservoirs and specialized structures for delivering the secretion, e.g. stings or modified mouthparts or fangs, are usually also present. In accordance with the aims of this book, we will deal with the comparative biochemistry of the animal toxins as natural products with special structures and functions; a discussion of the mechanisms of their pharmacological effects and the highly complicated organ structures and behavioural patterns associated with natural poisons may be found in numerous monographs [5, 20, 36, 68, 69]. Toxic proteins and oligopeptides are known from many very different animals (Table 9.1); there is, however, a host of low molecular weight compounds with considerable toxicity which will be considered along with other non-toxic products of secondary metabolism in Chapter 19.