Peptide-rich venom from the spider Heteropoda venatoria potently inhibits insect voltage-gated sodium channels

•H. venatoria venom has insecticidal activity with a LD50 of 28.18 μg/g body weight on cockroaches.•The venom has potent inhibitory effect on VGSCs in Periplaneta americana cockroach DUM neurons.•The venom has low inhibition on VGSC currents in rat DRG neurons.

Heteropoda venatoria is a venomous spider species distributed worldwide and has a characteristic habit of feeding on insects. Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography and matrix-assisted laser-desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analyses revealed that H. venatoria venom contains hundreds of peptides with a predominant molecular weights of 3000–5000 Da. Intra-abdominal injection of the venom had severe toxic effects on cockroaches and caused death at higher concentrations. The LD50 was 28.18 μg/g of body weight in the cockroach. It was found that the venom had potent inhibitory effect on voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) in Periplaneta americana cockroach dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons with an IC50 values of 6.25 ± 0.02 μg/mL. However, 100 μg/mL venom only partially blocked VGSC currents in rat dorsal root ganglion cells, a much lower inhibitory effect than that on DUM VGSCs. Our results indicate that the venom of H. venatoria contains diverse neurotoxins that might become new leads for bioinsecticides.