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Two novel biologically active short peptides, aeruginosins IN608 and IN652, were isolated from the cyanobacterium Microcystis sp. strain BHU006, which was collected from Durgakund water reservoir in Varanasi, India. Aeruginosins IN608 and IN652 are linear modified peptides containing four building blocks, one of which is the arogenate-derived modified amino acid 2-carboxy-6-hydroxyoctahydroindole. Aeruginosin IN608 and aeruginosin IN652 inhibit the activity of the proteolytic enzyme trypsin with IC50's of 4.3 and 4.1 μM, respectively.

Russell's viper (Daboia/Vipera russelli) venom from different regions of India was subjected to chromatographic, electrophoretic, biochemical and immunological analysis. The elution profiles from ion-exchange chromatography and protein banding pattern from SDS-PAGE showed a significant variation in the constituents of venoms. The acidic proteins are found to be predominant in the venoms of eastern and western regions while basic proteins are the major contributors of the northern and southern regional venoms. The major variation of phospholipases A(2) in the venom samples of India may be described as: southern regional venom is rich in basic, toxic PLA(2) while this activity showed a dramatic decrease as one moves towards west, north and eastern regions of India. In addition, the caseinolytic, TAME-hydrolytic, anticoagulant, oedema-inducing and haemorrhagic activities of the venoms have also varied from one region to another. The muscle specimens of mice injected with venoms of different regions showed variable change in the muscle fibre damage and cell morphology. The eastern regional venom is most lethal among all the venoms. The lethal potencies for four regional venoms vary as: eastern>western>southern>northern. The polyclonal antibodies prepared against the venom of southern region showed cross-reaction with the venoms of other regions, but the extent of cross-reaction and diffusion patterns are different. However, the polyclonal antibodies prepared against southern regional venom showed no protection against lethal toxicity of other regional venoms.