Download MendeleyNanobody-based recombinant antivenom for cobra, mamba and rinkhals bites.
Ahmadi, S., Burlet, N.J., Benard-Valle, M., Guadarrama-Martinez, A., Kerwin, S., Cardoso, I.A., Marriott, A.E., Edge, R.J., Crittenden, E., Neri-Castro, E., Fernandez-Quintero, M.L., Nguyen, G.T.T., O'Brien, C., Wouters, Y., Kalogeropoulos, K., Thumtecho, S., Ebersole, T.W., Dahl, C.H., Glegg-Sorensen, E.U., Jansen, T., Boddum, K., Manousaki, E., Rivera-de-Torre, E., Ward, A.B., Morth, J.P., Alagon, A., Mackessy, S.P., Ainsworth, S., Menzies, S.K., Casewell, N.R., Jenkins, T.P., Ljungars, A., Laustsen, A.H.(2025) Nature 647: 716-725
- PubMed: 41162699
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09661-0
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:
9RIT, 9RIU - PubMed Abstract:
Each year, snakebite envenoming claims thousands of lives and causes severe injury to victims across sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom depend on antivenoms derived from animal plasma as their sole treatment option 1 . Traditional antivenoms are expensive, can cause adverse immunological reactions, offer limited efficacy against local tissue damage and are often ineffective against all medically relevant snake species 2 . There is thus an urgent unmet medical need for innovation in snakebite envenoming therapy. However, developing broad-spectrum treatments is highly challenging owing to the vast diversity of venomous snakes and the complex and variable composition of their venoms 3 . Here we addressed this challenge by immunizing an alpaca and a llama with the venoms of 18 different snakes, including mambas, cobras and a rinkhals, constructing phage display libraries, and identifying high-affinity broadly neutralizing nanobodies. We combined eight of these nanobodies into a defined oligoclonal mixture, resulting in an experimental polyvalent recombinant antivenom that was capable of neutralizing seven toxin families or subfamilies. This antivenom effectively prevented venom-induced lethality in vivo across 17 African elapid snake species and markedly reduced venom-induced dermonecrosis for all tested cytotoxic venoms. The recombinant antivenom performed better than a currently used plasma-derived antivenom and therefore shows considerable promise for comprehensive, continent-wide protection against snakebites by all medically relevant African elapids.
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Organizational Affiliation:
