Snakes protect themselves from their own venom by producing a natural chelating agent

Hunter Litterio
Author: L.J. Devon
Published: March 01, 2014
Link:http://www.naturalnews.com/044107_snake_venom_chelating_agent_natural_protection.html

Summary: L.J. Devon, the author of the article, states that the venom of snakes is harmful to human systems and many scientists wondered why the snake wasn't harmed by it's own toxins. He then explains that the toxins in a snakes venom have a lot of metal ions, and protein enzymes in them. The enzymes in snake venom is used to speed up the chemical reactions the toxin inflicted on the human it is in, making the toxin spread and become harmful quicker. Devon then says several common enzymes found in snake venom and what it does to the human body such as Cholinesterase which attacks the central nervous system, and relaxes muscles making it hard for the person to move. Scientist C.R. Goucher and H.H. Flowers used chelating agents EDTA and DTPA to observe the relationship with snake toxin. Chelating agents break apart metal ions which can cause poisoning in humans, and the chelaters broke up the enzymes in snake toxin which could be the reason why snakes don't feel the affects of toxin within themselves. He later explains how further experimenting shows that snakes produce citrate which is a natural chelating agent. It means that snakes produce something in their toxin so that it doesn't harm itself.

Connection: This article connects back to previous units as not only does it display the uses of enzymes in nature connecting to chapter five, but it also displays the use of the scientific method used in chapter two. The scientific method is used to make new discoveries by making observations. In this particular study the observation was that humans were affected greatly by snake toxins, however snakes weren't, which could lead to hypotheses being made about the reason for this. Then people ran experiments to first realize that metal ions were prevalent in snake venom. After that more tests were run and scientists realized that snakes had enzymes in the toxins. Later chelating agents were combined with snake venom which led to less potent toxins, leading to predictions that snakes produced natural chelating agents in themselves to avoid the harm of their toxin. Lastly more tests were run which found the existence of a chelating agent in snakes leading to conclusions being drawn.