Snake venom is a storehouse of numerous bioreactive proteins. These proteins are enzymes, toxins, and growth factors. Vonoms from several species of snakes in concentrations from 100 to 6.25 itg/ml are being tested on primary cultures of mouse kidney and spleen cells, and established PC-12 cell cultures. Venoms from all tested species of snakes,are found to be cytolytic, except for Crotalus atrox and Oxyuranus scutellatus, which show growth proliferative effects on these cell cultures. The ven6m of C. a,tilox is being studied further. The growth of primary cultures in medium containing 10 percent fetal bovine serum (FBS) is equivalent to the growth obtained in serum free medium, containing 50 to 25 @g/ml crude venom. The growth of PC- 12 cells accelerates tremendously in serum free medium supplemented with venom. Thus, it is apparent that snake venom contains a cell growth factor. Snake venom-derived growth factor (SVGF) is being isolated in purity from the venom of C. atrox by HPLC or isoelectric electrophoresis. Each fraction is tested for growth on PC- 12 cells. The fraction showing a cell growth effect is tested on a variety of cell lines and with different media.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: This project would serve to introduce a novel cell growth promoter protein to replace currently used serum for growing cell cultures. Research will lead to a novel cell growth factor, which will replace the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in cell cultures. Use of SVGF may be extended to grow epithelial cells from bum victims for creating autograph.
