Bioprospetion of the Brazilian arthropods fauna searching for leader drugs for rational development of novel pharmaceuticals and pesticides

Abstract

Many of the medicines prescribed today were initially discovered in nature. Despite the advances in chemistry and the sophisticated instruments used for the combinatorial synthesis of new drugs, scientists still have recourse to nature as a source of inspiration for the development of new compounds. A substantial fraction of the medicines in use today was directly or indirectly derived from bioactive compounds produced by plants and/or microorganisms. Recently, compounds of low molecular weight of animal origin have also been the object of interest of agrochemical and/or pharmaceutical industries. Arthropods are considered a potentially very important source of new molecules which offer notable properties such as: high efficiency, low probability of microbial resistance, limited toxicity and low immunogenicity for humans. Spiders and wasps constitute a large group of arthropods present in the majority of terrestrial ecosystems. The toxic secretions of spiders and wasps are used to paralyze the insect-prey through the paralysis of the synaptic transmission of the neuromuscular junctions of those insects (Palma et al., 1997). Considerable efforts have been made to isolate and identify neuroactive compounds in the secretions of spiders and wasps, resulting in the discovery of many molecules which block the receptors of glutamate and/or calcium channels. Thus, many of these compounds have become structural models for the rational development of neuroprotective drugs for different neurological disorders. The small organic molecules existing in many of the toxic secretions of spiders and wasps are natural candidates for bioprospection for leader-compounds for the development of drugs for neurotherapeutic use and/or as selective bioinsecticides. The principal proposal of this project is the systematic investigation from the point of view of chemical characterization and of biological trials, of the natural products present in the exocrine secretions of a toxic nature, principally in venoms of Arthropods of the Brazilian fauna, such as spiders and wasps. (AU)