Dissociation of enzymatic and toxic activities by the use of antibodies

Abstract

IN A RECENT article KASTURi and GOWDA,(1990) described the dissociation of enzymatic and toxic activities of phospholipases A, (PLA) from Vipera russelli venom by neutraliza- tion experiments using rabbit polyclonal antibodies . The authors conclude that their results "have shown the presence of distinct sites on the same PLA 2 molecule responsible for neurotoxicity, catalytic activity, anticoagulant activity and myotoxicity" . Also they state that "there are no reports explaining the relationship between the catalytic activity and pharmacological properties making use of these (polyclonal) antibodies", and "For the first time we are reporting the presence of multiple pharmacological sites on the PLA 2 molecule apart from the catalytic site using polyclonal antibodies"