P. Gopalakrishnakone – Scorpion Venoms (2015)

Автор: P. Gopalakrishnakone
Название книги: Scorpion Venoms
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Яды скорпионов
Страницы: 580
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Scorpions have fascinated humans for a long time, first and foremost because of the harm the sting of a few species could cause but also due to their unique natural history and for the many biologically active compounds found in their venoms. This volume of the Toxinology handbook series covers all those aspects. The subjects are divided into seven sections starting with an introduction to the general aspects of scorpion biology and ecology, followed by the description of the “envenomation” pathophysiology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of venoms and their complex interactions with the immune system. The future of anti-scorpion venom therapy is then covered in two chapters dedicated to alternatives to the century-old techniques currently used to produce “anti-venoms”. The next section presents a world tour of “scorpionism” and dangerous scorpion species and their impact on human health. It is worth remembering that envenomation due to scorpion stings is a substantial health hazard in Asian, Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American countries, with over one million people stung by scorpions every year, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths. Species-centered overviews of “scorpion venoms” are presented in the next section, after which a section details the two main types of “scorpion toxins”. The last section covers high-throughput transcriptome and proteome screenings now known as “venomics”.

Old as the hills are, pictured in the sky, seen from no matter where, or engraved on
millennial stones, scorpions have quite obviously fascinated humans for a long
time, first and foremost because of the harm the sting of a few species could cause
but also due to their unique natural history and for the many biologically active
compounds found in their venoms. We have planned this volume to cover all those
aspects. The subjects are divided into seven sections starting with an Introduction
to the general aspects of scorpion biology and ecology, followed by the description
of the Envenomation pathophysiology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics
of venoms and their complex interactions with the immune system. The future of
antiscorpion venom therapy is then covered by two chapters dedicated to alternatives
to the century-old techniques currently used to produce Antivenoms. The next
section presents a world tour of Scorpionism and dangerous scorpion species and
their impact on human health. It is worth remembering that envenomation due to
scorpion stings is a substantial health hazard in Asian, Middle Eastern, African, and
Latin American countries, with over one million people stung by scorpions every
year resulting in more than 3,000 deaths. Species-centered overviews of Scorpion
Venoms are presented in the next section, after which a section details the two main
types of Scorpion Toxins. The last section covers high-throughput transcriptome
and proteome screenings now known as Venomics. We have been lucky that many
of the top-of-the-line scientists working on scorpions and their venoms have
accepted our invitation; our gratitude to all of them. This is obviously more their
book than it is ours.
The scope and time to publication differs greatly between reference books and
standard academic journals. The road to this volume started as an initiative of our
editor-in-chief, Ponnampalam Gopalakrishnakone, back in the middle of 2012.
We agreed to act as volume editors by December of that year and started sending
invitations, making agreements on the scope of the chapters, and setting up for the
reception and reviewing of the chapters. Over the following year and a half, all the
chapters were reviewed by at least two independent colleagues. We are indebted to
our dozens of anonymous reviewers; their evaluation and constructive criticism
have certainly improved the quality of the book. We are also thankful to the
editorial team at Springer (Mokshika Gaur, Meghna Singh, and Audrey Wong)
for their efforts during the editorial and production phases and general support
As editors, we have tried to keep the chapters accessible to a wide audience yet
deep enough as to provide detailed information to the experts. Being part of a
reference book, the chapters are intended to be self-contained and can be consulted
independently; nonetheless, all the chapters are cross-referenced to other chapters
in the book in order to facilitate browsing through the different topics. The online
version contains hyperlinks to indexed terms and references. We wanted this
volume to be an accurate account of the state of the art on scorpion venom research.
In line with the ambitious project of Springer’s Toxinology handbook series, we
envisioned this volume as a reference book that could be consulted for a long time.
We purposely avoided some themes that are deemed controversial or speculative,
for which we believe there is enough space in periodical journals. Should a
breakthrough become available in the near future, such as the recently published
genome draft of a single scorpion species, the online version of the book will be
open to the authors to update their chapters, and a new edition could be planned in
3–5 years’ time.