Epitopic Profiling of Antibody Response against Neurotoxins from the Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis)

The black mamba (Dendroaspis Polylepis) is among the most dangerous snakes in the world, with a venom dominated by three-finger toxins and dendrotoxins. Among the three-finger toxins, the α-neurotoxins (α-NT) are the most important, and these are conserved between snake species. Cross-reactivity between threefinger toxins is known to occur, and understanding this phenomenon in depth may help guide future design of antivenoms to obtain optimal specificity against medically important toxins from different snake species. Using a bioinformatic approach, we investigated the cross-reactivity be- tween three-finger toxins for a rabbit antiserum raised against short neuro- toxin 1 from D. polylepis (SN1-DP).