SYNTHETIC PEPTIDES AS TOOLS TO INVESTIGATE THE STRUCTURE AND PHARMACOLOGY OF POTASSIUM CHANNEL-ACTING SHORT-CHAIN SCORPION TOXINS

In the last decade, numerous polypeptide toxins acting on ion channels have been isolated and characterized from diverse scorpion venoms. Th ese toxins are useful pharmacological probes to study ion-specific cha nnel proteins because they interact selectively with these channels an d modulate their activities. Since low amounts of natural toxins can b e isolated from scorpion venoms, the chemical synthesis approach is ex tremely useful to produce larger quantities of toxins and toxin analog s. This report is a succinct overview of the possibilities offered by the chemical synthesis to investigate pharmacological and structural p roperties of these compounds. ((C) Societe francaise de biochimie et b iologie moleculaire/Elsevier, Paris).