• Johanna Bernaldez, Omar López, Alexei Licea, Emilio Salceda, Rogelio O Arellano, Rosario Vega, and Enrique Soto.
• Laboratorio de Inmunología Molecular y Biotoxinas, Departamento de Biotecnología Marina (C.I.C.E.S.E.), Ensenada, B.C., Mexico.
• Toxicon. 2011 Jan 1; 57 (1): 60-7.

AbstractConus californicus belongs to a genus of marine gastropods with more than 700 extant species. C. californicus has been shown to be distantly related to all Conus species, but showing unusual biological features. We report a novel peptide isolated from C. californicus with a significant inhibitory action over neuronal voltage-gated calcium channels. The new toxin is formed by 13-amino acid residues with two disulfide bonds, whose sequence (NCPAGCRSQGCCM) is strikingly different from regular ω-conotoxins. In the HPLC purification procedure, the venom fraction eluted in the first 10-15 min produced a significant decrease (54% ± 3%) of the Ca(2+) current in Xenopus laevis oocytes transfected with purified rat-brain mRNA. A specific peptide obtained from the elution at 13 min decreased the Ca(2+) current in the adult rat dorsal-root ganglion neurons in a primary culture by 34% ± 2%. The cysteine pattern of this peptide corresponds to the framework XVI described for the M-superfamily of conopeptides and is unprecedented among Conus peptides acting on Ca(2+) channels.Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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