Black Mamba Poison to Eliminate Pain

2012/10/08 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Farmakologia

The black mamba is the fastest snake in the world and one of the most poisonous. Your poison can kill a person in 20 minutes. But from this poison one can benefit a group of French researchers, who have recently published in Nature who have found two proteins that eliminate pain among the components that form the poison of the snake. They have an efficacy comparable to morphine and fewer side effects.

In fact, the discovery is part of an investigation to look for alternatives to morphine and the rest of opioids. By studying the poisons of 50 animals, they reach the proteins of the black mamba. In the tests carried out with the mouse these proteins, called mambalgines, have verified that they eliminate pain as morphine and that they are not toxic to the mouse. As in the case of morphine, tolerance increases over time, that is, more and more doses are needed, but this effect is less in the case of the mambalsas. And they do not increase the respiratory rate of mice (it is usually a dangerous side effect of opioids).

The mambalineras remove pain by another mechanism (do not act on opioid receptors). They inhibit some ion channels related to the transmission of pain, both in the central and peripheral nervous system. There are in vitro tests that appear to influence the human ion channels in the same way. Researchers believe that mambalgines or similar molecules can be viable for clinical use, so it can be a good way to develop new drugs to eliminate pain.