Exploring the antibacterial potential of venoms from Argentinian animals

Abstract

The resistance to antimicrobials developed by several bacterial species has become one of the main health problems in recent decades. It has been widely reported that natural products are important sources of antimicrobial compounds. Considering that animal venoms are under-explored in this line of research, in this study, we screened the antibacterial activity of venoms of eight snake and five lepidopteran species from northeastern Argentina. Twofold serial dilutions of venoms were tested by the agar well-diffusion method and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination against seven bacterial strains. We studied the comparative protein profile of the venoms showing antibacterial activity. Only the viperid and elapid venoms showed remarkable dose-dependent antibacterial activity towards most of the strains tested. Bothrops diporus venom showed the lowest MIC values against all the strains, and S. aureus ATCC 25923 was the most sensitive strain for all the active venoms. Micrurus baliocoryphus venom was unable to inhibit the growth of Enterococcus faecalis. Neither colubrid snake nor lepidopteran venoms exhibited activity on any bacterial strain tested. The snake venoms exhibiting antibacterial activity showed distinctive protein profiles by SDS–PAGE, highlighting that we could reveal for the first time the main protein families which may be thought to contribute to the antibacterial activity of M. baliocoryphus venom. This study paves the way to search for new antibacterial agents from Argentinian snake venoms, which may be a further opportunity to give an added value to the local biodiversity.