Novel Active Principles from Spider Venom

Spiders are one of the most intriguing groups of venomous animals. Substances found in their venom vary from simple inorganic compounds to large multi-domain proteins. In this article, we review some of the latest work presenting active principles that add to the known spider toxin universe. Two aspects of novelty are addressed in particular, structural (novel types of molecules in terms of structure) and functional (novel types of biological targets hit by substances from spider venom and novel mechanisms of action).