Studies on pharmacological effects of Russell's viper and Saw-scaled viper venom and its neutralization by chicken egg yolk antibodies

Antivenom antibodies were raised in 24-week-old white leghorn chickens against hemotoxic venoms of Russell's viper and Saw-scaled viper snakes. Booster injections of increasing concentrations of venom were given at 14days of time interval to raise the antivenom level in egg yolk. Antibodies were extracted from immunized chicken egg yolk by Polson et al. (Polson A., Von Wechmar M.B., Van Regenmortel M.H.V. Isolation of viral IgY antibodies from yolks of immunized hens. Immunological Communications 1980; 9:475–493.) and further purified by DEAE cellulose ion exchange column chromatography, which gave pure (180–200kDa) specific antibodies against venom. High titre of more than 1:10,000 antibodies were detected by ELISA at the 135th day of observation. The lethal toxicity and various pharmacological activities like hemorrhagic activity, phospholipase activity, edema and procoagulant activities of venom were carried out by both in vivo and in vitro methods. The effectiveness of antivenom in neutralizing these effects was carried out involving pre-incubation type experiments. The median effective dose (ED50) for Russell's viper venom was 0.96mg/2LD50/18g mice and for Saw-scaled viper venom it was 1.28mg/2LD50/18g mice. One millilitre of specific antivenom was effective in neutralizing 0.110mg of Russell's viper and 0.137mg of Saw-scaled viper venoms respectively (PD50). Antivenom was effective in neutralization assays in a dose dependent manner. The results indicate that antibodies raised in chicken could effectively neutralize the pharmacological effects induced by venoms and chickens therefore present an alternative and cheaper source of specific antibody generation.