{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,31]],"date-time":"2026-08-31T20:03:45Z","timestamp":1788206625176,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2014,6,12]],"date-time":"2014-06-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1402531200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Toxins"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Scorpion stings and snake bites are major health hazards that lead to suffering of victims and high mortality. Thousands of injuries associated with such stings and bites of venomous animals occur every year worldwide. In North Africa, more than 100,000 scorpion stings and snake bites are reported annually. An appropriate determination of the 50% lethal doses (LD50) of scorpion and snake venoms appears to be an important step to assess (and compare) venom toxic activity. Such LD50 values are also commonly used to evaluate the neutralizing capacity of specific anti-venom batches. In the present work,  we determined experimentally the LD50 values of reference scorpion and snake venoms  in Swiss mice, and evaluated the influence of two main venom injection routes  (i.e., intraperitoneal (IP) versus intravenous (IV)). The analysis of experimental LD50 values obtained with three collected scorpion venoms indicates that Androctonus mauretanicus (Am) is intrinsically more toxic than Androctonus australis hector (Aah) species, whereas the latter is more toxic than Buthus occitanus (Bo). Similar analysis of three representative snake venoms of the Viperidae family shows that Cerastes cerastes (Cc) is more toxic than either Bitis arietans (Ba) or Macrovipera lebetina (Ml) species. Interestingly, the venom of Elapidae cobra snake Naja haje (Nh) is far more toxic than viper venoms Cc, Ml and Ba, in agreement with the known severity of cobra-related envenomation. Also, our data showed that viper venoms are about three-times less toxic when injected IP as compared to IV, distinct from cobra venom Nh which exhibited a similar toxicity when injected IP or IV. Overall, this study clearly highlights the usefulness of procedure standardization, especially regarding the administration route, for evaluating the relative toxicity of individual animal venoms. It also evidenced a marked difference in lethal activity between venoms of cobra and vipers, which, apart from the nature of toxins, might be attributed to the rich composition of high molecular weight enzymes in the case of viper venoms.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/toxins6061873","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,6,12]],"date-time":"2014-06-12T11:14:31Z","timestamp":1402571671000},"page":"1873-1881","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":34,"title":["Evaluation of the Lethal Potency of Scorpion and Snake Venoms and Comparison between Intraperitoneal and Intravenous Injection Routes"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"6","author":[{"given":"Naoual","family":"Oukkache","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Venoms and Toxins, Pasteur Institute of Morocco, 1 Place Louis Pasteur,  Casablanca 20360, Morocco"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rachid","family":"Jaoudi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy,  University Mohamed V-Souissi, Rabat 6203, Morocco"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Noreddine","family":"Ghalim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Venoms and Toxins, Pasteur Institute of Morocco, 1 Place Louis Pasteur,  Casablanca 20360, Morocco"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fatima","family":"Chgoury","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Venoms and Toxins, Pasteur Institute of Morocco, 1 Place Louis Pasteur,  Casablanca 20360, Morocco"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Balkiss","family":"Bouhaouala","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Venoms and Therapeutic Molecules, Pasteur Institute of Tunis,  University of Tunis El Manar, 13 Place Pasteur, BP74, Tunis 1002, Tunisia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Naima","family":"Mdaghri","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Venoms and Toxins, Pasteur Institute of Morocco, 1 Place Louis Pasteur,  Casablanca 20360, Morocco"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9040-5647","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jean-Marc","family":"Sabatier","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory INSERM UMR 1097, University of Aix-Marseille, 163,  Parc Scientifique et Technologique de Luminy, Avenue de Luminy, B\u00e2timent TPR2, Case 939, Marseille 13288, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,6,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"360","DOI":"10.4269\/ajtmh.1972.21.360","article-title":"Toxicity of Costa Rican snake venoms for the white mouse","volume":"21","year":"1972","journal-title":"Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"277","DOI":"10.1006\/biol.1998.0160","article-title":"Effect of Some Variables on the in vivo Determination of Scorpion and Viper Venom Toxicities","volume":"26","author":"Krifi","year":"1998","journal-title":"Biologicals"},{"key":"ref_3","first-page":"252","article-title":"New analysis of the toxic compounds from the Androctonus. mauretanicus mauretanicus scorpion venom","volume":"51","author":"Oukkache","year":"2007","journal-title":"Toxicon"},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"World Health Organization (WHO) (1981). World Health Organization: Progress in the Characterization of Venoms and Standardization of Antivenoms, WHO."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"411","DOI":"10.1590\/S1678-91992012000400009","article-title":"General characterization of venom from the Moroccan snakes Macrovipera mauretanica and Cerastes cerastes","volume":"18","author":"Oukkache","year":"2012","journal-title":"J. Venom. Anim. Toxins Trop. Dis."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"823","DOI":"10.1016\/S0041-0101(97)00160-8","article-title":"Venoms, antivenoms and immunotherapy","volume":"36","author":"Chippaux","year":"1998","journal-title":"Toxicon"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"158","DOI":"10.1016\/j.toxicon.2011.11.005","article-title":"Venom of Bothrops asper from Mexico and Costa Rica: Intraspecific variation and cross-neutralization by antivenoms","volume":"59","author":"Segura","year":"2012","journal-title":"Toxicon"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"168","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1520-6017(200002)89:2<168::AID-JPS4>3.0.CO;2-Q","article-title":"Systematic availability and lymphatic transport of human growth hormone administered by subcutaneous injection","volume":"89","author":"Charman","year":"2000","journal-title":"J. Pharm. Sci."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1620","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1013046918190","article-title":"Lymphatic absorption is a significant contributor to the subcutaneous bioavailability of insulin in a sheep model","volume":"18","author":"Charman","year":"2001","journal-title":"Pharm. Res."},{"key":"ref_10","first-page":"282","article-title":"Substances m\u00e9dicamenteuses ou v\u00e9g\u00e9tales antagonistes du venin ou potentialisant le s\u00e9rum antivenimeux","volume":"90","author":"Chippaux","year":"1997","journal-title":"Bull. Soc. Pathol. Exot."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1016\/0041-0101(96)00074-8","article-title":"Body distribution of Tityus. Serrulatus. scorpion venom in mice and effects of scorpion antivenom","volume":"34","author":"Revelo","year":"1996","journal-title":"Toxicon"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"577","DOI":"10.1016\/j.biologicals.2010.05.006","article-title":"Study of the design and analytical properties of the lethality neutralization assay used to estimate antivenom potency against Bothrops asper snake venom","volume":"38","author":"Solano","year":"2010","journal-title":"Biologicals"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"18","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01607723","article-title":"A basic program for estimating LD50 values using the IBM-PC","volume":"37","author":"Trevors","year":"1986","journal-title":"Bull. Environ. Contam. Toxicol."},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"144","article-title":"(Comparative titration of three anti-venoms used against African subsaharian snakes)","volume":"95","author":"Dzikouk","year":"2002","journal-title":"Bull. Soc. Pathol. Exot."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"World Health Organization Guidelines for the production, control and regulation of snake antivenom immunoglobulins. Available online:http:\/\/www.who.int\/bloodproducts\/snake_antivenoms\/snakeantivenomguide\/en\/."},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"AGAH (2004). Working Group Pharmacokinetics: Collection of Terms, Symbols, Equations, and Explanations of Common Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Parameters and Some Statistical Functions, AGAH Publisher."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Guti\u00e9rrez, J.M. (1995). Handbook of Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons, CRC Press."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1615","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.1987.03400120065026","article-title":"Envenomation by the eastern coral snake Micrurus fulvius fulvius","volume":"258","author":"Kitchens","year":"1987","journal-title":"JAMA"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2211","DOI":"10.1124\/dmd.107.015669","article-title":"Lymphatic absorption of subcutaneously administered proteins: Influence of different injection sites on the absorption of dabepoetin alfa using a sheep model","volume":"35","author":"Kota","year":"2007","journal-title":"DMD"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1156","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1025036611949","article-title":"Pharmacokinetic model to describe the lymphatic absorption of r-methu-leptin after subcutaneous injection to sheep","volume":"20","author":"McLennan","year":"2003","journal-title":"Pharm. Res."},{"key":"ref_21","first-page":"144","article-title":"Lymphatic route of transport and pharmacokinetics of Micrurus. Fulvius. (Coral Snake) Venom in Sheep","volume":"45","author":"Paniagua","year":"2012","journal-title":"Lymphology"},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"297","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1520-6017(200003)89:3<297::AID-JPS2>3.0.CO;2-P","article-title":"Lymphatic transport of proteins after subcutaneous administration","volume":"89","author":"Porter","year":"2000","journal-title":"J. Pharm. Sci."},{"key":"ref_23","first-page":"1","article-title":"Comparaison between two methods of scorpion venom milking in Morocco","volume":"19","author":"Oukkache","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Venom. Anim. Toxins Trop. Dis."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"447","DOI":"10.1016\/S0076-6879(57)03413-8","article-title":"Spectrophotometric and turbidimetric methods for measuring proteins","volume":"3","author":"Layne","year":"1957","journal-title":"Methods Enzymol."}],"container-title":["Toxins"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-6651\/6\/6\/1873\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T21:12:24Z","timestamp":1760217144000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-6651\/6\/6\/1873"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2014,6,12]]},"references-count":24,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,6]]}},"alternative-id":["toxins6061873"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/toxins6061873","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-6651"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-6651","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2014,6,12]]}}}