What Is Scorpion Venom Used For

World's Deadliest Scorpion

Deathstalker scorpion

Deathstalker scorpion by Ester Inbar, Wikimedia Commons.

The deathstalker scorpion is one of the deadliest scorpions in the earth. Its tail is full of powerful venom. A deathstalker scorpion'due south sting is extremely painful and besides causes paralysis, an inability to move or experience office of the body. The scorpion uses this venom to hunt insects such as crickets, which are its main food source.

The deathstalker scorpion catches its food past taking its prey by surprise. It hides nether rocks in await for an unsuspecting cricket or other small insect, then springs out and grabs it. Because its pincers aren't very potent, information technology needs to sting its prey rapidly to keep it from getting away. Within moments of being stung, the cricket is paralyzed or expressionless, giving the scorpion plenty of fourth dimension to savor its repast.

Let's accept a closer wait at muscles and how venom effects the cells in your body.

muscle cell diagram

Channels on musculus cells let ions enter the jail cell. This controls how muscles flex and relax.

How Do Muscles Work?

The muscles in your body are controlled by the movement of special molecules chosen ions. Depending on the type of ion and whether its moving in or out of muscle cells, the cells either relax or contract. Ane such ion is chloride, which helps muscle cells know when to relax. When all the cells in a musculus are contracted, that muscle is flexed. This makes it possible for you to move your artillery, legs and other parts of your torso.

Ions enter musculus cells through openings in the cell membrane called channels. These channels are fabricated of proteins and have a specific shape that permit merely certain molecules or atoms pass. Chloride channels, for instance, are specifically designed to only let chloride ions in and out of the prison cell.

venom diagram

Chlorotoxin blocks channels on muscle cells, which stops ions from entering.

How Does Venom Work?

Now that y'all understand how muscles work, let's take a closer wait what venom does within your cells.

Scorpion venom contains a very modest poly peptide concatenation called chlorotoxin, merely 36 amino acids long. This tiny protein has a very powerful effect though. It is perfectly shaped to block chloride channels and stop chloride ions from inbound muscle cells. Without these ions sending signals telling your cells to relax, the muscles in your body all flex at once and paralysis sets in.

computer model of chlorotoxin

A calculator model of scorpion venom. The colors show the unlike amino acids that make upwardly the protein molecule.

Shape Matters

The shape of a protein is very of import. This is what makes it possible for a protein to interact with other proteins and parts of the prison cell. It's like having two pieces of a puzzle that fit together, or similar having the right key for a certain lock. If a protein is non folded correctly, it doesn't have the right shape and doesn't fit with parts of the cells.

Scorpion chlorotoxin, for example can be folded in at least 256 dissimilar ways. All the same merely 1 of these works correctly to block chloride channels in your muscle cells.

Venom in Medicine

snake milking

Scientist go samples of venom by gently squeezing a serpent'due south jaws. This is chosen 'serpent milking'.

In nature, animals use venom for self-defense or to catch prey. In the lab, scientists are finding out that venomous proteins can be used in medicine.

Researchers have had success, for example, in using scorpion venom to treat brain tumors in humans. Instead of causing harm to good for you nerve and muscle cells, venom such as chlorotoxin tin can exist used to block signals from cancer cells. Blocking these signals prevents them from growing.

Scientists take as well discovered ways in which the effect of paralysis can be helpful for humans. When a patient goes into surgery, for case, it's of import for their trunk to stay very still while the medico performs the performance. Fifty-fifty a tiny movement could cause a very large mistake! So, in add-on to drugs that crusade sleep, patients are ofttimes given drugs that cause temporary paralysis while the doctor performs the surgery.

The more than we larn about proteins and their shapes, the more nosotros empathise about what might become wrong in our bodies and why. Knowing this helps researchers pattern amend medicines and treatments.