3.2. Venom fractionation
The soluble venom of H. lunatus was fractionated by
HPLC and showed more than 20 components (Fig. 4A). As
with other chromatographic profiles of scorpion venoms
(Batista et al., 2004), the separation in C18 reverse column
is completed at approximately 60 min of the gradient, at
a flow rate of 1 mL/min. According to the authors
mentioned above, the fractionated components during the
first 20–40 min of the gradient would be the minor
peptides corresponding to Kþ- and Naþ- channel neurotoxins.
It is known that most scorpion toxic peptides have