They discover a powerful analgesic in deep-sea cone snails

Writing Science, 23 Mar An international team of researchers has discovered that conical snails that live in the tropical bottoms produce a compound similar to somatostatin, an inhibitory hormone used to treat growth, pancreas and pain and inflammation disorders. Although the venom of these snails has been used for years to produce drugs against chronic pain, diabetes and other diseases, the full potential or uses of the substances that these animals generate are not yet known. Now, a study published in Science Advances advances that a species of snails produces a somatostatin-like toxin and, although the pharmacological applications are not yet clear, the finding highlights the potential of poisons produced and improved by snails for millions of years. “The venom of the conical snail is like a natural library of compounds. You just have to find what's in it,” explains Iris Bea Ramiro, from the University of Copenhagen. Some cone snails are fish hunters. Some fire a hook with a burst of poison and others release a cloud of poison into the water with compounds that deprive fish of their senses and leave them disoriented. Of the estimated eight groups of snails as hunters, only half are well known. The Conus rolani, a species of Asprella snail, have hardly been studied because they live in very deep and inaccessible waters. While studying the venom of these snails in mice, Ramiro found that it contained a somatostatin-like peptide that caused rodents to act slowly or unresponsive. Ramiro traveled to the University of Utah, where they study the venom of these snails since 1970, to compare the peptide he had found, called Consomatin Ro1, with known human proteins. “Somehow, cone snails take some of their hormones and turn them into weapons,” explains Helena Safavi-Hemami, a researcher at the University of Utah and lead author of the study, who helped Ramiro in his research. After a year of work, they confirmed that the C. rolani snail peptide activates two of the five human receptors for somatostatin. In humans, this hormone has many different functions in the human body, but it is always blocking something. Therefore, it has always been an interesting hormone for drug development. It is not yet clear how a component of the venom that mimics somatostatin can be useful, but the study showed that Consomatin Ro1 can block pain in mice with similar efficacy to morphine and can be used to block pain so that the prey does not know that it has been hit. From now on, researchers will study the origin of consomatin Ro1 in snails and try to better understand the potential of the compound as an anti-inflammatory or analgesic. The results of the study show how poisonous animals can convert a hormone into a weapon and suggest that the range of biochemical tools of the poison might be broader than previously thought.