The resistance to chemotherapeutics by the cancerous cells has made its treatment more complicated.
Animal venoms have emerged as an alternative strategy for anti-cancer therapeutics. Animal
venoms are cocktails of complex bioactive chemicals mainly disulfide-rich proteins and peptides with
diverse pharmacological actions. The components of venoms are specific, stable, and potent and have
the ability to modify their molecular targets thus making them good therapeutics candidates. The isolation
of cancer-specific components from animal venoms is one of the exciting strategies in anti-cancer
research. This review highlights the identified venom peptides and proteins from different venomous
animals like snakes, scorpions, spiders, bees, wasps, snails, toads, frogs and sea anemones and their anticancer
activities including inhibition of proliferation of cancer cells, their invasion, cell cycle arrest, induction
of apoptosis and the identification of involved signaling pathways.
Through the Looking Glass: Time-lapse Microscopy and Longitudinal Tracking of Single Cells to Study Anti-cancer Therapeutics