Biological Mass Spectrometry. Wondering around the Tropical Countries to Look for Toxic Spiders. Are Animal Toxins Really Poisonous? Highly Sensitive Analysis of Spider Toxins Using Mass Spectrometry.

Venomous animals store various toxins which are used for defense against enemies and securing food. There were number of case reports of snake-, scorpion-, wasp-, and spider bites. Since those toxins show wide variety of symptoms and have various mechanism of action on different cell types, they could be used as an invaluable tools for studies of bioactivity. Highly sensitive analytical methods for determination of spider toxin acylpolyamines from single venom gland using MALDI-sector MS, continuous flow FRIT FAB LC/MS, and MS/MS systems will be discussed.