Skip to main content
Article
α-Conotoxin Decontamination Protocol Evaluation: What Works and What Doesn’t
Toxins
  • Matthew W. Turner, Boise State University
  • John R. Cort, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  • Owen M. McDougal, Boise State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-2017
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins9090281
Disciplines
Abstract

Nine publically available biosafety protocols for safely handling conotoxin peptides were tested to evaluate their decontamination efficacy. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS) were used to assess the effect of each chemical treatment on the secondary and primary structure of α-CTx MII (L10V, E11A). Of the nine decontamination methods tested, treatment with 1% (m/v) solution of the enzymatic detergent Contrex™ EZ resulted in a 76.8% decrease in α-helical content as assessed by the mean residue ellipticity at 222 nm, and partial peptide digestion was demonstrated using high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Additionally, treatment with 6% sodium hypochlorite (m/v) resulted in 80.5% decrease in α-helical content and complete digestion of the peptide. The Contrex™ EZ treatment was repeated with three additional α-conotoxins (α-CTxs), α-CTxs LvIA, ImI and PeIA, which verified the decontamination method was reasonably robust. These results support the use of either 1% Contrex™ EZ solution or 6% sodium hypochlorite in biosafety protocols for the decontamination of α-CTxs in research laboratories.

Copyright Statement

This document was originally published in Toxins by Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). This work is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Details regarding the use of this work can be found at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. doi: 10.3390/toxins9090281
Citation Information
Matthew W. Turner, John R. Cort and Owen M. McDougal. "α-Conotoxin Decontamination Protocol Evaluation: What Works and What Doesn’t" Toxins (2017)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/owen_mcdougal/39/