Appearance
"Leiurus hebraeus" is yellow, and 30–77 millimetres long, with an average of 58 mm.Naming
Other species of the genus "Leiurus" are also often referred to as "deathstalkers".Defense
Neurotoxins in "L. quinquestriatus" venom include:⤷ Chlorotoxin
⤷ Charybdotoxin
⤷ Scyllatoxin
⤷ Agitoxins types one, two and three
Uses
A component of the deathstalker's venom, the peptide chlorotoxin, has shown potential for treating human brain tumors. There has also been some evidence to show that other components of the venom may aid in the regulation of insulin and could be used to treat diabetes.In 2015 clinical trials were beginning of the use of chlorotoxin with a fluorescent molecule attached as brain tumour "paint", to mark cancerous cells in real time during an operation. This is important in brain cancer surgery, where it is vital both to remove as many cancerous cells as possible, but not to remove healthy tissue necessary for brain functioning. In preclinical animal trials the technique could highlight extremely small clusters of as few as 200 cancer cells, compared to the standard use of MRI, with a lower limit in excess of 500,000.
References:
Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.
