Diploma thesis Lutz Meyer

Background:
With more than 500 species, predatory cone snails (genus Conus) form the largest living genus of marine animals.
The cone snails use complex venoms to capture prey. These venoms contain conotoxins (small disulfide-rich peptides, generally 7-35 amino acids in length), but also larger protein components that are mostly poorly characterized.

For background information:
McIntosh, Santos and Olivera/  "Conus peptides targeted to specific nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subtypes) in Annu Rev Biochem 68, 59-88 (1999)
Craig, Bandyopadhyay and Olivera/ "Post-translationally modified neuropeptides from Conus venoms" in Eur.J.Biochem.264, 271-275 (1999)
Olivera, Hillyard, Marsh and Yoshikami/ "Combinatorial peptide libraries in drug design: Lessons from venomous cone snails" in Tibtech 13, 422-426 (1995)

Project:
In collaboration with the group of Dr. Edgar Heimer from the Centre for Neurobiology in Querétaro and the group of Dr.Lourival Possani of the Instituto de Biotecnología  in Cuernavaca, both from the National University of Mexico (Mexico), we started to characterize the venom of the marine snail Conus delessertii using protein chemical analysis and functional tests.