Spider Venom as Bio-Insecticide

Insecticidal toxins derived from insect predators and parasitoids are of growing interest in the development of bio-insecticides at present. One of the major features contributing to the overall success of spiders is the production of a highly toxic venom from their venom glands that they employ to subdue prey and deter predators. Since they rely completely on predation as a trophic strategy, spiders have evolved a complex pre-optimized combinatorial library of enzymes, neurotoxins and cytolytic compounds in their venom glands. Most spider venoms are dominated by small disulfide-rich peptide neurotoxins and these are the largest and most extensively studied group of spider toxins. To date, around 922 peptide toxins from 78 spider species have been described in Arachno-Server 2.0