Toxinologic and Pharmacological Investigation of Venomous Arthropods

Dear Colleagues,

Arthropods comprise the largest group of living animals that include thousands of species that inhabit marine and terrestrial niches in the biosphere. Among the major groups of terrestrial arthropods, several classes contain venomous species, such as arachnids (scorpions and spiders), hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps), and chilopods (centipedes). Many of them have well-developed venom apparatus and rich-blends of toxins in their venoms that are used for self-defense and prey capture. Some of them are harmful to humans, and even today cause many poisoning incidents all over the world. On the other hand, the arthropod venoms are recognized for the chemical and structural richness of their bioactive compounds and, consequently, for the diverse pharmacological activities and potential of drug discovery. The arthropod venoms contain not only peptides and proteins as major components, but also small organic molecules (e.g., biogenic amines and polyamines), which in combination may synergistically act to disrupt the physiological circuit of victims and/or prey. Thus, chemical and pharmacological investigation of arthropod venoms have been one of the major aspects of Toxinology that have made it possible for molecular pharmaceutical intervention to treat, for instance, chronic pain, immunological and neurological disorders, and infections caused by multi-drug resistant microbes. In recent years, remarkable progress of analytical methods by mass spectroscopy combined with transcriptomic and proteomic approaches, as well as with other “omics” methodologies, like metabolomics, made it possible to reveal the diversity and usefulness of the venom components from some tiny arthropod species. However, given the huge number of species of arthropods, there are still many understudied venoms that demand more detailed investigation regarding the pharmacological mode of action and structure–activity relationships, aiming at the medical application of native venom components and derivatives. Moreover, venom peptides have been harnessed to be developed into target-selective and specific biotherapeutics to tackle diseased processes of cells. This new Special Issue is a sequel to the previously published Special Issue “Arthropod Venom Components and their Potential Usage”. Hence, we would like to collect and combine in this companion Special Issue state-of-the-art progress that results from chemical, biological, and pharmacological research of arthropod venoms.

Dr. Katsuhiro Konno
Prof. Gandhi Rádis-Baptista
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxins is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.