Examining venom from a variety of poisonous snakes, a group of
researchers at the University of California, San Francisco has
discovered why the bite of one small black, yellow and red
serpent called the Texas coral snake can be so painful. The
finding offers insights into chronic and acute pain and provides
new research tools that may help pharmaceutical companies design
drugs to combat pain. The venom contains a toxic mixture of
chemicals that includes two special proteins that join together,
glom tightly onto tiny detectors on human nerve endings and
don't let go. These detectors normally sense acid burns, and
after the snake bites, the victim's brain receives unrelenting
signals of an acid-like burn. "Bites from this snake are
associated with really intense, unremitting pain," said David
Julius, PhD, the Morris Herzstein Chair in Molecular Biology &
Medicine at UCSF, who led the research. "This work helps to
explains why and gives us new tools for examining how our brains
perceive pain." Described this we