Genetic and enzymatic characterization of sphingomyelinase D isoforms from the North American fiddleback spiders Loxosceles boneti and Loxosceles reclusa

In this study we report the isolation and characterization of several sphingomyelinase D isoforms from the venoms of the North American spiders Loxosceles boneti and Loxosceles reclusa, from Mexico and the United States, respectively. We have measured their enzymatic activity, their capacity to induce necrotic lesions in rabbits, cloned the cDNAs coding for the mature forms of two of the isoforms from L. boneti and two of L. reclusa based on N-terminal sequence information of the purified proteins, and performed a comprehensive comparison of the sequence data generated by us with that reported for other sphingomyelinase genes to date. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.