1. The biological properties of four venom pooled samples from adult taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus) snakes and one pooled venom sample from six juvenile taipan snakes (11 months old) were compared. 2. The intravenous LD50 (median lethal dose), procoagulant activity and enzymatic activities of the juvenile venom were not significantly different from those of the adult venoms. 3. The juvenile and adult venoms exhibited similar polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic (PAGE) and SDS-PAGE patterns, indicating that they possessed a similar protein composition. 4. The results suggest that there is no significant age-dependency in the biological properties of taipan venom.
Trimeresurus wagleri (speckled pit viper) venom exhibited the usual set of enzyme activities occurring in pit viper venoms but the content of alkaline phosphomonoesterase was unusually high, whereas the proportions of protease and arginine ester hydrolase were very low. The venom also exhibited weak thrombin-like activity but did not exhibit hemorrhagic or anticoagulant activity. Analysis of the Sephadex G-200 gel filtration fractions of the venom indicated that the lethal fraction was a low mol.wt protein, and that fractions exhibiting phosphodiesterase, phosphomonoesterase, arginine ester hydrolase, thrombin-like enzyme, L-amino acid oxidase and phospholipase A activities were not lethal. Two lethal toxins, designated as wagleri toxins 1 and 2, were isolated from the venom using Sephadex G-50 gel filtration chromatography followed by SP-Sephadex C-25 ion exchange chromatography. The mol.wts of the two toxins were 8900 by gel filtration. The LD50 (i.v.) values in mice for wagleri toxins 1 and 2 are 0.17 microgram/g and 0.19 microgram/g, respectively.