Toxins-Membrane Interactions
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Venoms".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2018) | Viewed by 12502
Special Issue Editors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues
Venom-derived toxins isolated from, e.g., spiders, snakes, scorpions, and cone snails, target a range of ion channels and receptors with high potency and sometime exquisite selectivity. These toxins have played an important part in furthering our understanding of the pharmacology and physiology of these ion channels and receptors, many of which are involved in various pathophysiological conditions, including pain, stroke, cardiac disease and epilepsy and they are therefore also being pursued as interesting drug leads. Interestingly, in addition to targeting membrane proteins, several toxins have been reported to target the membrane itself and in some instances, interact with both the membrane and the membrane protein in a tri-molecular complex. In this Special Issue, we are therefore focusing on toxin-membrane interactions. We are welcoming submission with an emphasis on membrane-interacting toxins, membrane-permeating toxins and toxins that interact with the membrane and a membrane protein in concert with the aim of shining the spotlight on an understudied area in the field of toxin drug development. The study of toxin-membrane interactions could potentially challenge the traditional lock-and key paradigm employed in drug design. It is therefore crucial that we further our knowledge of toxin-membrane interactions if we are to understand, e.g., cell-penetrating toxins or toxin-receptor subtype selectivity.
Dr. Christina I. Schroeder
Assoc. Prof. Mehdi Mobli
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- toxins
- lipid membranes
- toxin-membrane interactions
- membrane-permeating toxins
- trimolecular complex
- toxin-membrane molecular modelling
- toxin biophysical studies
- toxin engineering
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