A novel conotoxin from Conus striatus, μ-SIIIA, selectively blocking rat tetrodotoxin-resistant sodium channels

μ-Conotoxin SIIIA, a novel blocker of tetrodotoxin-resistant (TTX-R) voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) has been identified from the fish-hunting cone snail, Conus striatus. The deduced sequence consists of a 20-residue signal peptide, a 31-residue pro-peptide, and a 20-residue mature toxin with its N-terminal Gln cyclized and C-terminus amidated. μ-SIIIA shares the common cysteine arrangement with other μ-conotoxins. Besides, it exhibits high sequence homology with μ-SmIIIA, a toxin recently characterized from C. stercusmuscarum which potently blocks the TTX-R VGSCs in frog neurons. With whole-cell recording, μ-SIIIA potently and selectively inhibits the TTX-R VGSCs of dissociated adult rat small-diameter dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons with a dose- and time-dependent property and irreversibly. Homology-based modeling of μ-PIIIA, SIIIA and SmIIIA implies that they share a common backbone conformation except at the N termini. The hydroxyl-proline residue only present in μ-PIIIA is absent and substituted by an Asp residue in μ-SIIIA and SmIIIA. Similarly, one crucial basic residue (Arg12 in μ-PIIIA) is replaced by serine in the latter two toxins. Such differences might endow them with the capacity to selectively inhibit TTX-S or TTX-R VGSCs. Considering that TTX-R VGSCs predominantly expressed in DRG neurons play pivotal roles in the nociceptive information transmission and that their specific antagonists are still lacking, μ-SIIIA might provide a useful tool for functional studies of these channels, and potentially be developed as an efficient pain killer.