Partial Fragmentation on Venom of Bungarus fasciatus which used for Ethical Snake Antivenom Production

• Main Author: Angelika Sukmana, Adira
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/43493
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Fragmentation of snake venom by proteases such as pepsin and trypsin can be adopted to produce venoid, the detoxified snake venom used as immunogen to induce antivenom-antibody in animal host. The detoxified snake venom has lower toxicity compared to the crude venom. The use of detoxified snake venom is an implementation to develop antivenom production process which sticks to the ethics along with animal welfare principles. Snake venom is expected to be partially fragmented to avoid overdigestion and thus lower the risks of antigenic determinant loss. The study about partial fragmentation of B. fasciatus’ venom was done by screening on factorial design using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The variety pH level of 3 to 7; enzyme concentration of 0,1 – 1,5 (% w/v); and incubation time of 1 to 4 hours was used as basis combination for each points observations. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of those parameters toward the venom fragmentation percentage. ANOVA test showed that for pepsin-facillitated fragmentation, the level of pH has significant effect to the venom fragmentation percentage. Trypsin-facillitated fragmentation also showed that the level of pH along with incubation time have significant effect (p-value < 0,05). The performance of each proteases in producing B. fasciatus venoid was also rely on its median lethal doses. LD50 test done with mice (13-17 g) as animal test showed that median lethal dose of pepsin-facillitated venoid is 0,1317 mg/kg, exactly the same value as the crude venom. Whereas, trypsin-facillitated fragmentation has found to decrease the toxicity level of B. fasciatus venoid to 3,2 mg/kg or about 24 times lower compared to the crude venom. In conclusion, trypsin has better catalytic activity to detoxify B. fasciatus’ venom rather than pepsin based on its fragmentation percentage and median lethal dose.