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procoagulates!!!!
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by nietzsche on May 25, 2011
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Hi Everyone,
Regarding procoagulates in snake venom, I am running into some confusion. For clarification purposes, are the factors in the blood of the bite victim the same factors in the venom of the snake, but with modification to scaffolds or surface chemistry, or are the proteins in the venom completely different, but they act on the factors in the blood? All the roman numerals and coagulation cascade flow charts are making me want to put my head in the oven. Please help:)
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RE: procoagulates!!!!
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by CanadianSnakeMan on May 25, 2011
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Hi Kelly,
Forgive me if my explanation isn't totally exact as you're right, coagualtion is one of the most complex processes performed by the body.
The procoagulant components of venom don't mimic the clotting proteins in the blood, but rather they bind to and activate them, setting off a chain reaction within the blood and using up all the clotting factors.
Ironically, procoagulants don't always make the blood coagulate, but rather they often activate the fibrinogen and begins converting it to fibrin without actually forming a solid clot. This uses up all the body's fibrin thus preventing any further clotting. When combined with capillary-destroying hemmorhgins it's easy to see how this would have a catastrophic effect.
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RE: procoagulates!!!!
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by nietzsche on May 26, 2011
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Thanks Luke:) It's confusing because some are referred to as factor Xa-like, and I didn't know if that was indicative of a recruited protein factor, so they are structurally similar, or similar in their action, or both since protein shape effects how they function. Uniprot has like 15,000.00 plus entries for factor v! Will carefully re-read and keep this in mind.
Thanks again for the help.
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RE: procoagulates!!!!
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by CanadianSnakeMan on May 27, 2011
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Yes, the structure-function relationships of clotting factors can get very, very tedious and confusing.
I need to brush up for sure1
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RE: procoagulates!!!!
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by BGF on June 1, 2011
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Actually, some of them are indeed the same components e.g. the factor X toxins in Australian snake venoms do not act on factor X, but rather ARE factor X, mutated to have a higher rate of activity and also being much more resistent to degradation by regulatory proteins.
Others, however, are simply referred to by activity, e.g. the prothrombin-activators. Which may be of different protein types but sharing the same activity.
That is why referring to the toxins by the type of protein type that was used to make the toxin, rather than activity, leads to less confusion. E.g. the 'thrombin-like' toxins in viper venoms are thrombin-like in activity but are not thrombin-like in structure (they are kallikrein enzymes).
Cheers
B
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