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The classical potassium channel inhibitors are toxin peptides from venomous animals, and whether there are peptide inhibitors from other species is an open question. Due to both the independent and interdependent relationships between the spear (peptide inhibitors) and the shield (potassium channels), human defensins were first identified by our group as endogenous potassium channel inhibitors. Encouraged by the discovery of human defensins as potassium channel inhibitors, defensins from invertebrates and fungi were successively found by our group to be potassium channel inhibitors. In addition, a plant defensin was reported to be a potassium channel inhibitor. Since defensins are widely produced by vertebrate, invertebrate, plant and fungi species, the recent work established a new research field on defensin-potassium channel interactions. Here, we review the current work on defensins from vertebrate, invertebrate, plant and fungi species as inhibitors of potassium channels and discuss future work in this research field.

The discovery of human β-defensin 2 (hBD2), as a Kv1.3 channel inhibitor with the unique molecular mechanism and novel immune modulatory function, suggests that human β-defensins are a novel class of channel ligands. Here, the function and mechanism of the human β-defensin 1 (hBD1) binding to potassium channels was investigated. Based on the structural similarity between hBD1 and Kv1.3 channel-sensitive hBD2, hBD1 was found to selectively inhibit human and mouse Kv1.3 channels with IC50 values of 11.8 ± 3.1 μM and 13.2 ± 4.0 μM, respectively. Different from hBD2 modifying Kv1.3 channel activation and increasing activation time constant, hBD1 did not affect the activation feature of both human and mouse Kv1.3 channels. In comparison with hBD2 simultaneously interacting with the extracellular S1-S2 linker and pore region of Kv1.3 channel, the chimeric channel and mutagenesis experiments showed that hBD1 only bound to the extracellular pore region of Kv1.3 channel instead of extracellular S1-S2 linker or S3-S4 linker. Together, these findings enhance knowledge of hBD1 as a new immune-related Kv1.3 channel blocker and highlight the major functional differences between hBD1 and hBD2 to explore in future research.

Kunitz-type peptides from venomous animals are an important source of lead drug candidates towards human plasmin, a target of protease-associated diseases. However, no Kunitz-type plasmin inhibitor from venomous scorpion has been characterized. Here, we first investigated plasmin inhibiting activities of eight known Kunitz-type scorpion toxins Hg1, BmKTT-1, BmKTT-2, BmKTT-3, LmKTT-1a, LmKTT-1b, LmKTT-1c and BmKPI, and found a new plasmin inhibitor BmKTT-2, a Kunitz-type toxin peptide from the scorpion Buthus martensi karch. Protease inhibitory activity assay showed that BmKTT-2 potently inhibited plasmin with a Ki value of 8.75 ± 2.05 nM. Structure-function relationship studies between BmKTT-2 and plasmin showed that BmKTT-2 is a classical Kunitz-type plasmin inhibitor: Lys13 in BmKTT-2 is the P1 site, and Ala14 in BmKTT-2 is the P1' site. Interestingly, BmKTT-2 has potent inhibiting activities towards three important digestive serine proteases trypsin, chymotrypsin and elastase, suggesting a good stability for administering oral medications. To the best of our knowledge, BmKTT-2 is the first Kunitz-type human plasmin inhibitor from scorpion venom, providing novel insights into drug developments targeting human plasmin protease.

The diverse α-scorpion toxins are invaluable pharmacological tools and potential drugs targeting sodium channels, but the pharmacological profiles of most toxins remains unknown so far. Here, we reported pharmacological activities of two novel α-scorpion toxins LmαTX3 and LmαTX5 from the Lychas mucronatus . Using the expression vector pET-28a, the recombinant LmαTX3 and LmαTX5 were separated by RP-HPLC and identified by MALDI-TOF-MS. Subsequently, sodium channels rNa v 1.2, mNa v 1.4, hNa v 1.5 and hNa v 1.7 were used for evaluating the pharmacological activities of LmαTX3 and LmαTX5 toxins. The electrophysiological experiments showed that both 10 μM recombinant LmαTX3 and LmαTX5 seriously inhibited the fast inactivation of mNa v 1.4 and hNa v 1.5 channels, moderately affected hNa v 1.7 channel, and hardly modulated rNa v 1.2 channel. The dose–response experiments further indicated the EC 50 values of LmαTX3 were 4.98 ± 0.79 μM for mNa v 1.4, 1.23 ± 0.31 μM for hNa v 1.5 and 31.46 ± 2.32 μM for hNa v 1.7 channels, respectively. Similar pharmacological profiles of recombinant LmαTX5 were also observed, and its EC 50 values were 4.53 ± 1.38 μM, 1.03 ± 0.43 μM and 67.62 ± 2.31 μM for mNa v 1.4, hNa v 1.5 and hNa v 1.7, respectively. In addition, the recombinant LmαTX3 from the vector pET-14b had much less effect on the fast inactivation of mNa v 1.4, hNa v 1.5 and hNa v 1.7 channels, which indicated that the expression vector pET-14b likely played a critical role in toxin function. Together, these findings first highlighted that scorpion toxins from L. mucronatus were a new molecular resource of discovering pharmacological probes and prospective drugs targeting sodium channels in the future.

Kunitz-type proteins from animal venom are good tools for understanding structure-function relationships between serine proteases and their inhibitors. We used a cDNA library to clone and characterize the Buthus martensi Kunitz-type protease inhibitor (BmKPI) present in the venom gland of the scorpion B. martensi. The gene codes for a signal peptide of 19 residues and a mature peptide of 64 residues. The mature BmKPI peptide possesses a unique cysteine framework reticulated by four disulfide bridges, unlike many other Kunitz-type proteins with three disulfide bridges. The recombinant BmKPI peptide was functionally expressed and showed strong inhibitory activity toward trypsin (Ki 1.8 × 10⁻⁶ M), chymotrypsin (Ki 3.2 × 10⁻⁸ M), and elastase (Ki 1.6 × 10⁻⁷ M). Structure-functional relationship between elastase and BmKPI was further studied. Cysteine mutagenesis experiment showed that the unique disulfide bridge Cys53-Cys61 had little effect on its inhibiting elastase. Molecular dynamics simulation revealed that BmKPI possesses elastase inhibitory active sites similar to the classical Kunitz-type venom peptides, although their cysteine frameworks were different. These results showed that BmKPI is a new multifunctional serine protease inhibitor. To the best of our knowledge, BmKPI is the first functionally characterized Kunitz-type elastase inhibitor derived from scorpion venoms.

Scorpion venoms are rich resources of bioactive peptides with extreme variability. Multiple molecular mechanisms are involved in the diversity of scorpion venom peptides. However, alternative splicing, which plays a major role in the generation of proteomic and functional diversity in metazoan organisms, hasn't been reported in genes coding for scorpion venom peptides. In the EST analysis of venom peptide transcripts from scorpion Lychas mucronatus , we reported an alternative splicing event. Transcripts of LmTxLP11 and LmVP1.1 share identical 5′ region. LmVP1.1 is a novel type of scorpion venom peptides constrained by one disulfide bridge, whereas LmTxLP11 is an extended version of LmVP1.1. By transcript alignment with its genomic sequence, it is found that both transcripts are generated from a single gene by alternative poly A site and terminal exon. The gene encoding LmTxLP11 and LmVP1.1 is the first one harboring three introns ever reported from scorpion venoms. This work demonstrates for the first time that alternative splicing is involved in regulating the diversity of scorpion venom peptides.