Newsletter

No. 92

December 2013

Headline News	Innovation and Development	Applied Technology	Basic Science	Cooperation between CAS and Local Authorities
Bioscience	International Cooperation	Brief News	Geoscience	Activities of CAS Leaders

Applied Technology

Achievement Made on Research of Animal Ingredients of the Chinese Medicine

Centipede is popularly used by the Chinese traditional medicine, normally to treat the paralytic stroke and body pains, etc. Research Prof. Lai Ren and his group in the Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS conducted a systematic study on the functional mechanism of the bioactive peptide extracted from centipedes, and found a series of centipede neurotoxins acting on the ion channels (Yang et al, Mol Cell Proteomics. 2012;11:640-50). In their earlier studies, the group worked jointly with an Australian research group led by Prof. Glenn King, in which the μ-SLPTX-Ssm6a, a selective sodium ion channel NaV 1.7 inhibitor was identified from the Chinese red head centipede. The NaV1.7 ion channel highly selective inhibitor is a major target for the development of analgesic drugs without addiction, while the selective inhibitor in the ion channels can be used to treat almost all sorts of pains. Therefore, the highly selective NaV1.7 inhibitor from the ion channel has become the hotspot in the study of the current pain relieving endeavor. The μ-SLPTX-Ssm6a from the red head centipede are highly selective to NaV1.7, while such function would be reduced or none to other ion channels The study on the rodent pain models demonstrates that the analgesic effect by μ-SLPTX-Ssm6a is better than morfine. The relevant achievement was published in a recent issue of PNAS (Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2013 Oct 22; 110 (43):17534-9).

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