Comparative Venomics of C. flavidus and C. frigidus and Closely Related Vermivorous Cone Snails

Abstract

Cone snail venom biodiversity reflects dietary preference and predatory and defensive envenomation strategies across the ≈900 species of Conidae. To better understand the mechanisms of adaptive radiations in closely related species, we investigated the venom of two phylogenetically and spatially related species, C. flavidus and C. frigidus of the Virgiconus clade. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that the major superfamily profiles were conserved between the two species, including 68 shared conotoxin transcripts. These shared transcripts contributed 90% of the conotoxin expression in C. frigidus and only 49% in C. flavidus, which showed greater toxin diversification in the dominant O1, I2, A, O2, O3, and M superfamilies compared to C. frigidus. On the basis of morphology, two additional sub-groups closely resembling C. flavidus were also identified from One Tree Island Reef. Despite the morphological resemblance, the venom duct proteomes of these cryptic sub-groups were distinct from C. flavidus. We suggest rapid conotoxin sequence divergence may have facilitated adaptive radiation and the establishment of new species and the regulatory mechanisms facilitating species-specific venom evolution.

Bioprospecting and marine ‘omics’: surfing the deep blue sea for novel bioactive proteins and peptides

“…Another example is the work of Magdy et al (2023), where it was shown that the venom of Conus flavidus is at least two-fold more cytotoxic to the HepG2 cancer cell line than to a normal cell line. Joining this interesting work with the analysis of the transcriptome and proteome of this species described in Himaya et al (2022) could lead to the identification of novel candidates for drug discovery.…”