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New Insights on the Pharmacokinetics of Venoms and Antivenoms

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Scorpion Venoms

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Abstract

The development of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for venoms and antivenoms with high sensitivity has enabled to characterize pharmacokinetics (PK) of venoms and antivenoms, which in turn allowed modeling their absorption, distribution, and elimination, as well as the adequacy of different therapeutic regimes. Pharmacokinetics is the branch of pharmacology dealing with absorption, distribution, and elimination of drugs in the body; it is fundamental to determine the dose and dosing scheme of a drug. ELISA studies provided evidence indicating that antivenoms (in spite of their large molecular size) are quickly and actively extravasated from blood to tissues. ELISA studies have also enabled to show that heterologous antibodies induce production of antibodies able to interact with antivenoms, modifying their PK and reducing their effectiveness. This has been confirmed using high-resolution deconvolution fluorescence microscopy (HRDFM) of fluorescently labeled antivenoms. HRDFM has also provided evidence showing a complex distribution of antivenoms in the body and has shown that mammalian immunoglobulins (IgG) are transported very differently in the body than avian IgYs, which suggests they must have different PK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory on Cellular Neuropharmacology, Centro de Biofísica y Bioquímica, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC), Apartado 20632, Caracas, 1020A, Venezuela

    Carlos Sevcik & Gina D’Suze

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  1. Carlos Sevcik
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  2. Gina D’Suze
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Correspondence to Carlos Sevcik .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    P. Gopalakrishnakone

  2. Departamento de Ciências Fisiológicas -, Universidade de Brasília Laboratório de Toxinologia, Brasilia, Brazil

    Elisabeth Ferroni Schwartz

  3. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

    Lourival D. Possani

  4. Laboratoire Ecologie, Systématique et Ev Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, ORSAY Cedex, France

    Ricardo C. Rodríguez de la Vega

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Sevcik, C., D’Suze, G. (2014). New Insights on the Pharmacokinetics of Venoms and Antivenoms. In: Gopalakrishnakone, P., Ferroni Schwartz, E., Possani, L., Rodríguez de la Vega, R. (eds) Scorpion Venoms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6647-1_19-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6647-1_19-1

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