page_title: Argiotoxin
section_title: Mechanism of action of Argiotoxins
hierarchical_section_title: Argiotoxin / Mechanism of action of Argiotoxins
caption_attribution_description: English: Behaviour of argiotoxins at the junction of nerve and muscle
context_page_description: Argiotoxins represent a class of polyamine toxins isolated from the orb-weaver spider.
  The orb-weaver spiders, also known as araneids; belong to the Araneidae spider family. This type of spiders is located in almost every area of the world.
context_section_description: This spider's venom shows varied action mechanisms that affect the different parts of the nervous impulse transmission chain. As mentioned above,  Argiotoxins are polyamine toxins. This biomolecular group can effectively inhibit certain ligand-gated ion channels  in the central nervous system of mammals and the insects’ glutamic receptor (it has been characterized as an opposite of homomeric and heteromeric glutamate-activated receptor channels ). It has been seen that it can also inhibit the following receptors: AMPA, NMDA (argiotoxin has higher potency at NDMA receptors), kainite and nicotine acetylcholine receptors. It is thought that polyamine toxins’ inhibition is both use and voltage dependent. What is more, they bind within the pore of the open channels they inhibit.
  A lot of attention is drawn to the pharmacological uses of polyamine toxins. They are highly valuable due to their high affinity for iGlu receptors, important drug targets for psychiatric diseases. It has not been developed yet, although it is thought that it could be a great procedure in neuroprotection and in the treatment of Alzheimer disease.
  Argiotoxin could even be used as a tool for analyzing the subunit composition of AMPA receptors in native membranes.
caption: Behaviour of argiotoxins at the junction of nerve and muscle
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2016:10:17 21:04:03", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9424", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:10:17 21:02:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:10:17 21:02:26", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}