Will diabetics one day control their blood sugar by using snail toxin? They just might, considering that researchers who study the venom of sea snails have discovered that a component of their poison is very close to a human hormone that helps regulate glucose levels in the blood.
A research team from the University of Utah made the discovery and published their finding in the journal Nature Communications. The sea snail in question has a strange name: the geography cone snail. That’s right, “geography,” not “geographic.” The substance within the snail’s venom is called consomatin, which the scientists say behaves like the human hormone somastatin. Somastatin plays a part in regulating blood sugar and various hormones.
The geography cone snail is most abundant in the Indo-Pacific region, and they’re meat eaters. They like to hunt small fish for their supper. Of all the sea snails, the geography cone is has the most potent venom, and nearly all human deaths from sea snail poisoning happen because of contact with a geography cone.
It appears that the deadly substance, like the venom of poisonous snakes, may be able to be turned into drugs beneficial for humans. The scientists say consomatin, the sea snail component that mimics the functions of a human hormone, is more stable and has more precise effects than the human somastatin.
Lead author and researcher Ho Yan Yeung said somastatin binds to five different “membrane receptors” in humans. By contrast, the snail consomatin binds to only one of the five receptors and produces the same effect.
Snails use the consomatin in their venom in a clever way. The substance prevents blood sugar from rising in fish, which has the effect of killing them. Since diabetes is a disease of uncontrolled and very high blood sugar, the medical potential for consomatin is obvious.
Current drug treatments for diabetes aim to keep the body’s blood sugar from rising to dangerous levels, but all the drugs have unwanted side effects. The hope is that consomatin may be able to be used to create diabetes drugs that are “cleaner” and do their job of regulating glucose without having harmful side effects.
