A functional role for snake envenomation wound exudate in local and systemically observed pathophysiology

Abstract

A number of snake venoms are well known for producing systemic effect such as pulmonary edema, brain hemorrhage, acute kidney injury and coagulopathy. While systemic envenomation has long been recognized with some snake venoms, the mechanisms associated with venom dissemination to distal sites and how they then reach specific targets are less well understood. Recently we have been focusing on the biological activities of wound exudates generated from envenomation by Bothrops asper and Daboia russelii. These are interesting venoms for experimental comparison in that most of the effects that upon intramuscular injection of B.asper are observed locally, whereas with D. russelii there are dramatic systemic effects including generalized vascular permeability. Pathological vascular leakage in particular likely plays a critical in the hallmark acute kidney injury observed in D. russelli envenomation; however, the etiology of this is unknown. Recently, we have demonstrated that wound exudate produced in our murine model system of D. russelii envenomation is able to act synergistically with the components of the venom causing systemic vascular leakage and promoting hemoconcentration. Proteomic charac- terization of the exudate identifies a number of factors which could contribute to the increase of the systemic vascular permeability and accordingly the hemoconcentration effect. In summary, these results suggest a biologically role for D. russelii wound exudate in promoting key systemic pathologies associated with envenomation. Keywords: Envenomation wound exudate, Vasculopermeability, Edema, Systemic envenomation.