Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript "Spider Venom: Components, Modes of Action, and Novel Strategies in Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analyses" is a comprehensive review on spider venom composition, spider toxin structure and pharmacology, mechanism of action, nomenclature, and state-of-the-art technology, mainly transcriptomics and proteomics techniques employed for the study of spider venoms. Its content is within the scope of the journal and should be interesting for a large number of readers, given the broad coverage of topics like toxin chemistry, structural biology, and pharmacology. Therefore, I recommend the publication of this work in its present form.

Reviewer 2 Report

The review focuses on the large landscape of spider venom, an current issue for the interest that the large plethora of its bioactive molecules has on the human healthy, both as toxins and as drugs. In a very fluent English language, authors critically present a very comprehensive summary of the current understanding of structural features, mechanisms of toxicity and discovery methodologies of spider venom proteinaceous components. Less expert readers have also the possibility to be introduced in the complex spider biology and on the history of the spider venom research. Potential applications as anti-cancer and analgesic drugs, although cited all over the manuscript, remain less explored.