Study On Antiepileptic Effect Of Scorpion Venom Heat-resistant Protein

Epilepsy is one of the most popular nervous system diseases. There are at least 50 million epilepsy patients all over the world. The primary mechanism of the epilepsy derived from the neurotoxicity induced by excessive excitatory amino acid glutamate, but its real mechanism have not yet discovered. Animals treated with KA, which is a rigid analog of glutamate and a robust epileptogenic agent, result in both acute seizure and chronic spontaneous recurrent seizure (SRS). KA-induced chronic SRS is a consequence of long-lasting enhancement of susceptibility to seizure. The acute seizure diminish in a short time, however, SRS exist for a long period. The chronic SRS is the most marked clinical characteristic in epilepsy patient, especially in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Scorpion Venom (SV) is an antiepileptic component isolated from the venom of Buthus martensi Karsch (BmK), which is a complex mixture composed of a wide array of substances and has been used in Chinese traditional medicine for thousands of years. In our previous experiments, we found that SV showed powerful effects in dealing with both acute seizure and SRS. Because SV contains neurotoxins, which limits its application in the clinic. In this experiment, we used the Scorpion Venom heat-resistent protein (SVHRP) which was purified from SV, whose neurotoxity had been cancelled, while its the effect of antiepilepsy was much greater than before.Neuropeptide Y(NPY)is supposed as one of the endogenous anticonvulsive substances, since NPY coexists withγ-aminobutyric acid...