Analysis of fatty acids released by crotoxin in rat brain synaptosomes.

Crotoxin, the main toxin of Crotalus durissus terrificus venom, exerts its lethal effect by blocking neurotransmission at the neuromuscular junction level through a triphasic mechanism. This effect seems to depend on its phospholipasic activity, suggesting that the mechanism of neurotransmission blockage may be related to fatty acids release in specific sites of the nervous terminal. In this work, we purified the fatty acids released by crotoxin's activity and this outline was compared with other phospholipases A(2), including CB, a subunit of crotoxin. Our results show a higher release of palmitate and arachidonate by crotoxin when compared to other phospholipases A(2). Since palmitate has a role in protein acylation processes and arachidonate participates in signal transduction events, these mechanisms may be related to the neurotoxic actions of crotoxin.