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As venomous animals, spiders use the active substances they produce to catch prey or for defense. For the first time, scientists from the Hessian LOEWE Center for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG) at the Giessen-based Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Bioresources Division (IME-BR) have now analyzed enzymes contained in spider venom in addition to the neurotoxins that have already been studied many times and have a damaging effect on the central nervous system of the other party. They discovered a large, previously overlooked variety of protein molecules that drive biochemical metabolic processes. According to the researchers, these could also be of interest for bioeconomic applications. Their findings have been published in the journal “npj Biodiversity”, which belongs to the “Nature” group of specialist journals.  

“In the past, some scientific work has indicated the presence of enzymes in spider venoms, but a targeted search for them has never been carried out. We set ourselves this task and systematically searched the raw data of all spiders that have been analyzed for their venoms for enzymes. We were able to show that there are actually more than 140 different enzyme families in their venoms,” explains study leader Dr. Tim Lüddecke, head of the ‘Animal Venomics’ working group at the Giessen IME-BR and the Justus Liebig University Giessen. “This means, among other things, that we have dramatically underestimated the chemical diversity of spider venoms, as all calculations of complexity are based solely on neurotoxins.”  

According to the authors, the results of the work not only enable new research approaches to better understand the evolution and function of spider venoms, but also open up new perspectives for their use. “Enzymes are central building blocks of the bioeconomy. They accelerate chemical reactions and are characterized by their very low by-product formation, low energy consumption and biodegradability. They can therefore be used to create value in an extremely sustainable way. Industry is therefore constantly on the lookout for new sources of enzymes,” explains Josephine Dresler, PhD student in the working group and first author of the study. “Some of the enzymes we have identified could be used in detergents or waste disposal, for example, due to their lipolytic or protein-degrading effect. They could make a significant contribution to a sustainability transformation there,” Dresler is convinced.  

Publication in npj Biodiversity:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00058-2