Posts tagged enzymes

Phospholipase A2 note:

[boring biochem technicalities]

Humans create their own PLA2 (I and II) that serve completely different functions than as a hemolytic enzyme (though an overload of PLA2 will act in that fashion). In fact, in general, they have a function more closely associated to neurotoxic venoms than hemotoxic ones - they typically bind to acetylcholine receptors and serve as a cholinergenic molecule. This is why some snakes utilize it in a fashion that causes a flaccid (limp) paralysis, including a failure of the diaphragm muscles to contract, leading to death by suffocation.

However, in some snakes (notably vipers and boomslangs), PLA2 is simply the primary protein in a cocktail of toxins that make up the venom. The other enzymes and molecules combine to create a potent hemotoxic venom that ruptures erythrocytes in a slow and steady manner, and get broken down by the body in an even slower manner.

[/boring biochem technicalities]

Hence, PLA2 in boomslangs = good lord you’re bleeding out your eyes and ears and mouth and nose and probably other places