Talk:Α-Neurotoxin

December 2011

created this page to unify the snake venom alpha neurotoxins. Added a history section (great article by CC Chang), types, mechanism, structure. this section could also be better integrated with nicotinic acetylcholine receptors for a better understanding of the receptor structure and mechanism of opening/blockage.

other than antagonist action on muscle nAChRs?

Do really all alpha-like neurotoxins bind antagonistically to their target receptors? Or are there also neurotoxins with agonist, partial agonist or even allosteric modulator action? In comparison, the actions of snake venom toxins on muscarinic and neuronal nicotinic AChRs appear to be quite diverse, ranging from no interaction at all over allosteric modulation to agonist, antagonist and anything inbetween. Sure, neuromuscular block is a more universal phenomenon as it is an effective way to rapidly incapacitate prey, unlike most other cholinergic manipulations. But this does not exclude nicotinic agonists among snake toxins, as they would have a similar effect as the antagonists... --2003:E7:7742:9767:AC16:31B1:4B15:5E1C (talk) 02:04, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Maybe such other neurotoxins exist but are not named alpha-neurotoxins. Since the symptoms of envenoming will differ somewhat (an agonist causes fasciculations, whereas an antagonist does not; NAMs would at low dose resemble an antagonist but not cause full paralysis at high dose, etc.), these neurotoxins, as far as known, may have different names? --130.83.182.66 (talk) 13:07, 30 April 2019 (UTC)