Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Walstrom, Katherine

Keywords

Barbouri, Snake, Venom, Lipase, Diesterase

Area of Concentration

Chemistry

Abstract

Envenomation by snakebite is a serious concern in many third world countries due to the high costs of developing and manufacturing successful antivenoms. A potential method to alleviate this concern is to develop novel polyvalent antivenoms capable of treating the venoms of many different snake species. Producing a single serum would be far less costly than producing several capable of addressing the same range of species. The synthesis of such a serum requires detailed information of both interspecies and intraspecies diversity in terms of the composition of the different venoms in question. This work sought to explore intraspecies venom diversity in the pygmy rattlesnake Sistrurus miliarius barbouri by observing changes in venom composition on both an ontogenetic and a dietary basis. Specifically, the activity of two key venom enzyme types, phospholipase and phosphodiesterase, were monitored across several venom samples from two juveniles which were provided specific prey. The results of this work suggest that a prolonged diet of warm-blooded prey may induce secretion of both phospholipase and phosphodiesterase activity, although alternative explanations of the data are possible and more experiments would need to be conducted to establish statistical significance.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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