Venom protein nomenclature

This page shows the principal references on nomenclature of different types of venom proteins, as well as links to lists where these proteins are classified (red boxes) or databases in which they are available (blue boxes).

Several attempts to establish a general rational nomenclature have been made in the past, the most recent being King et al. (2008) . These authors propose a rational nomenclature for naming peptide toxins from spiders, nomenclature which can be extended to other venomous animals' toxins. This proposition has already been followed for naming sea anemone toxins (Oliveira et al., 2012).
Briefly, this nomenclature proposition gives three pieces of information in the name; toxin activity (see the list of Greek symbol descriptors), biological source and relationship to other toxins of the same species.