NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE ENCODING THE SNAKE-VENOM FIBRINOLYTIC ENZYME ATROXASE OBTAINED FROM A CROTALUS-ATROX VENOM GLAND CDNA LIBRARY

Atroxase, isolated from the venom of Crotalus atrox (western diamondba ck rattlesnake), is a nonhemorrhagic protease which has fibrinolytic a ctivity in vivo. The primary structure of atroxase was deduced from th e cDNA encoding the atroxase protein. The venom glands of Crotalus atr ox were used to prepare a cDNA library. Degenerate oligonucleotides me re synthesized based on the partial amino acid sequence of atroxase an d were used as primers in the polymerase chain reaction to amplify ove rlapping cDNA fragments from the C. atrox cDNA library. The resulting cDNA fragments were subcloned, sequenced, and translated. The final nu cleotide sequence shows high homology to previously described primary structures of nonhemorrhagic fibrinolytic proteases isolated from snak e venom. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.