Scorpionism (scorpion sting) is a major public health issue in many regions of the world.
Globally, 1.2 million scorpion stings happen annually, specifically in the tropical regions …

Scorpions are one of the most ancient groups of terrestrial animals. They have maintained a
steady morphology over more than 400 million years of evolution. Their venom arsenals for …

The structural similarity between defensins and scorpion neurotoxins suggests that they
might have evolved from a common ancestor. However, there is no direct experimental …

Scorpion toxins are well-known as the largest potassium channel peptide blocker family.
They have been successfully proven to be valuable molecular probes for structural research …

Centipedes are one of the oldest venomous arthropods using toxin as their weapon to
capture prey. But little attention was focused on them and only few centipede toxins were …

Besides classical scorpion toxin–potassium channel binding modes, novel modes remain
unknown. Here, we report a novel binding mode of native toxin BmKTX towards Kv1. 3 …

The potassium channels were recently found to be inhibited by animal toxin-like human β-
defensin 2 (hBD2), the first defensin blocker of potassium channels. Whether there are other …

During the long-term evolution of animal toxins acting on potassium channels, the acidic
residues can orientate the toxin binding interfaces by adjusting the molecular polarity. Based …

Peptide-based therapy against cancer is a field of great interest for biomedical
developments. Since it was shown that SK3 channels promote cancer cell migration and …

Defensins form a major family of antimicrobial peptides. Recently, human β‐defensin 2 and
fungal plectasin were shown to be immune‐related potassium voltage‐gated channel …