{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,8]],"date-time":"2026-06-08T17:04:16Z","timestamp":1780938256828,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,11]],"date-time":"2024-10-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1728604800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors","award":["45890"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["45890"]}]},{"name":"Science, Technology &amp; Innovation Funding Authority","award":["45890"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["45890"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003009","name":"National Academy of Sciences","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["45890"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["45890"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003009","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Toxins"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Scorpion toxins are relatively short cyclic peptides (&lt;150 amino acids) that can disrupt the opening\/closing mechanisms in cell ion channels. These peptides are widely studied for several reasons including their use in drug discovery. Although improvements in RNAseq have greatly expedited the discovery of new scorpion toxins, their annotation remains challenging, mainly due to their small size. Here, we present a new pipeline to annotate toxins from scorpion transcriptomes using a neural network approach. This pipeline implements basic neural networks to sort amino acid sequences to find those that are likely toxins and thereafter predict the type of toxin represented by the sequence. We anticipate that this pipeline will accelerate the classification of scorpion toxins in forthcoming scorpion genome sequencing projects and potentially serve a useful role in identifying targets for drug development.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/toxins16100437","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,11]],"date-time":"2024-10-11T03:53:47Z","timestamp":1728618827000},"page":"437","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Optimizing Scorpion Toxin Processing through Artificial Intelligence"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Adam","family":"Psenicnik","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biology, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT 06810, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andres A.","family":"Ojanguren-Affilastro","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Divisi\u00f3n Aracnolog\u00eda, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires C1405, Argentina"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7192-1083","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matthew R.","family":"Graham","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biology, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mohamed K.","family":"Hassan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Port Said University, Port Said 42521, Egypt"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3862-5535","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mohamed A.","family":"Abdel-Rahman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismailia 41522, Egypt"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2328-9084","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Prashant P.","family":"Sharma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6062-282X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Carlos E.","family":"Santib\u00e1\u00f1ez-L\u00f3pez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biology, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT 06810, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"187","DOI":"10.1007\/PL00006457","article-title":"Dynamic diversification from a putative common ancestor of scorpion toxins affecting sodium, potassium, and chloride channels","volume":"48","author":"Froy","year":"1999","journal-title":"J. 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