CHARACTERIZATION OF SPIDER VENOM BY MASS- SPECTROMETRY, CONSTRUCTION OF ANALYTICAL SYSTEM

Spiders belonging to the genera, Nephila, Nephilengys, Araneus, etc., posses various polyamine toxins in their venom glands which paralyze i nsects by blocking the nerve-muscle signal transduction of glutaminerg ic synapses. More than 50 kinds of polyamine toxin analogs have been c haracterized which consist, in general, of the aromatic or heteroaroma tic moiety connected with the combination of various types of polyamin e chains. We are developing a new analytical system by means of a mode rn mass spectrometric technique which satisfies more rapid, highly sen sitive and simple clean-up procedure without complicated chromatograph ic treatment. The trial of such approach has been performed by employi ng crude spider venom as the model material. This review article conce rns with such proceeding of mass spectrometric analysis by microcolumn HPLC hyphenated FAB-MS system, continuous flow FAB-MS/MS system with high energy collision charge-remote fragmentation, solid and liquid ma trix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI- and liquid MALDI-) t echnique connected with tandem mass spectrometer performing in the ins titute and in addition, femto-molar characterization of new spider ven om spider polyamine toxins as a result of the application of such new techniques is addressed.