Purified calf thymus dna

0.05 µg/µl of crude venom in 1X phosphate buffered saline (PBS) was mixed with purified calf thymus DNA (Sigma-Aldrich, United States) and incubated at 37°C for 60 min to assess the DNase activity of N. sagittifera and N. naja venoms (Gerceker et al., 2009 (link); Senji Laxme R. R. et al., 2021 (link)). Post-incubation, these reaction mixtures were subjected to 0.8% agarose gel electrophoresis. GelRed (Sigma-Aldrich, United States) nucleic acid stain was used to visualise DNA in an iBright CL1000 gel documentation system (Thermo Fisher Scientific, United States). The percentage DNase activity of the venom samples, and that of the positive control, was calculated by densitometric analysis of the images using the ImageJ software (Schneider et al., 2012 (link))

The DNase activities of the venoms were assessed using a method described by Gercerker et al. [25 (link)] with slight modifications [20 (link)]. A predefined concentration of crude venom (0.05 μg/μl) was incubated with purified calf thymus DNA (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), reconstituted in phosphate buffer saline (PBS), followed by incubation at 37°C for 60 mins. Reaction mixtures were then subjected to electrophoresis on a 0.8% agarose gel and visualised on an iBright CL1000 gel documentation system.