Dear friends

I am a professional chemist, and a passionate cone collector. So I
understand a bit about what is behind conotoxins. As it has been pointed
out, there are several groups which carry out top research in this field.
Dr Jon Paul Bingham used to "milk" C. purpurascens on a regular basis in
order to extract a few microliters of crude venom each time. HPLC/MS study
of these crude extracts have shown that the "venom" is a very complex
mixture of many substance. Several types of conotoxins have been isolated
from these extracts. They are oligopeptides, which are classified
depending upon the presence, absence and number of S-S bonds (loops) in
the oligopeptide. The proteic nature makes feasible to use the natural
venom as template or model for the synthesis in the lab or industry of the
same substance in gram-scale quantities. Thus, Ziconotide is essentially
the alpha conotoxin of C. magus. Alternatively, it is possible to work
just with the genes that codify the particular conotoxin peptide, so it is
not even necessary to mess with the venom extracts. Every class of
conotoxin has its specific target in the mammals organism, and hence
different applications can be developed. If I remember it well, Ziconotide
is an alternative to opiaceous drugs in the treatment of chronic pain in
terminal patients. It is not addictive like morphine or its derivatives,
however it has to be injected directly to the spine of the patient in
order to be effectively delivered. AS more research is done, we will for
sure know further medical applications of these interesting biomolecules.
Just in case anyone might think that this sort of research may jeopardise
the future of cone species, that is not true. The conotoxins are
synthetic, and one single specimen of cone or just a few specimens are
sufficient to provide information about the gene sequences of the peptides
thanks to the modern molecular biology techniques. Fortunately, nobody is
going to kill one or two metric tons of cones for the sake of extracting
one gram of conotoxin!
Warmest regards, Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year to all

Manuel Jimenez Tenorio

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