Production of Monovalent Antivenom Effective against Androctonus crassicauda Scorpion Venom

The scorpion of Androctonus crassicauda belongs to the Buthidae family, it has a strong and deadly venom for humans, and every year there are cases of death due to the sting of this scorpion. The purpose of this study is the biological evaluation of the venom of this scorpion, the production of monovalent antivenom against it, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the produced antivenom.

The A. crassicauda scorpions were collected from different cities of Khuzestan province and milked by electric shock. In this research, the amount of venom protein, lethal dose 50 (LD50), immune response of horses, purification of antibodies, effectiveness of antivenom (ED50), degree of neutralization of venom with antivenom and the effect of monovalan antivenom in neutralizing the activity of hyaluronidase enzyme were evaluated. This research has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute with code IR.RVSRI.REC.1401.017.

The amount of protein and LD50 of the venom from studied scorpion were calculated to be 78 mg/ml and 11.27 µg per mouse, respectively. The results of measuring the antibody titer at different times of venom injection showed the increase in the immune response of horses against the venom. The value of ED50 was around 9 LD50 and 92.22 µg per mouse. According to the results, scorpion venom has hyaluronidase enzyme activity, and 10 µL of the produced pure antivenom was able to neutralize 100% of the venom's hyaluronidase activity.

In this project, extracted venom and produced antivenom showed their effectiveness. The produced antivenom was able to neutralize the venom in mice and prevented the death of the envenomed mice.