Complex cocktails: the evolutionary novelty of venoms

Casewell, Nicholas R.; Wüster, Wolfgang; Vonk, Freek J.; Harrison, Robert A.; Fry, Bryan G.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2012.10.020

Cited by 794 publications

(776 citation statements)

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“…Venoms are among the most common adaptations across the animal kingdom ranging from bees and wasps, snakes, scorpions, spiders and marine animals such sea anemones, jellyfish and cone snails for both prey capture and defence (Casewell et al, 2013). Venoms induce a range of effects including cardiotoxicity, myotoxicity, and neurotoxicity with potency and specificity leading to the widespread interest in them as possible therapeutics (King, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An efficient transcriptome analysis pipeline to accelerate venom peptide discovery and characterisation

Prashanth

Lewis

2015

Toxicon

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Please cite this article as: Prashanth, J.R., Lewis, R.J., An efficient transcriptome analysis pipeline to accelerate venom peptide discovery and characterisation, Toxicon (2015), doi: 10.1016/ j.toxicon.2015.09.012. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT AbstractTranscriptome sequencing is now widely adopted as an efficient means to study the chemical diversity of venoms. To improve the efficiency of analysis of these large datasets, we have optimised an analysis pipeline for cone snail venom gland transcriptomes. The pipeline combines ConoSorter with sequence architecture-based elimination and similarity searching using BLAST to improve the accuracy of sequence identification and classification, while reducing requirements for manual intervention. As a proof-of-concept, we used this approach reanalysed three previously published cone snail transcriptomes from diverse dietary groups. Our pipeline method generated similar results to the published studies with significantly less manual intervention. We additionally found undiscovered sequences in the piscovorous C. geographus and vermivorous C. miles and identified sequences in incorrect superfamilies in the molluscivorus C. marmoreus and C. geographus transcriptomes. Our results indicate that this method can improve toxin detection without extending analysis time. While this method was evaluated on cone snail transcriptomes it can be easily optimised to retrieve toxins from other venomous animals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An efficient transcriptome analysis pipeline to accelerate venom peptide discovery and characterisation

Prashanth

Lewis

2015

Toxicon

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“…Of particular note, the biodiversity of oceanic islands is often underestimated [9]. In addition to the ecological impact of a decrease in snake species richness, these extinctions have economic consequences: venoms have applications in many fields including medicine, pharmacology and immunology [10][11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vintage venoms: Proteomic and pharmacological stability of snake venoms stored for up to eight decades

Jesupret

Baumann

Jackson

et al. 2014

Journal of Proteomics

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For over a century, venom samples from wild snakes have been collected and stored around the world. However, the quality of storage conditions for "vintage" venoms has rarely been assessed. The goal of this study was to determine whether such historical venom samples are still biochemically and pharmacologically viable for research purposes, or if new sample efforts are needed. In total, 52 samples spanning 5 genera and 13 species with regional variants of some species (e.g., 14 different populations of Notechis scutatus) were analysed by a combined proteomic and pharmacological approach to determine protein structural stability and bioactivity. When venoms were not exposed to air during storage, the proteomic results were virtually indistinguishable from that of fresh venom and bioactivity was equivalent or only slightly reduced. By contrast, a sample of Acanthophis antarcticus venom that was exposed to air (due to a loss of integrity of the rubber stopper) suffered significant degradation as evidenced by the proteomics profile. Interestingly, the Keywords:Mass spectrometry Toxinology Stability studies These results demonstrate that with proper storage techniques, venom samples can retain structural and pharmacological stability. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled:Proteomics of non-model organisms. Biological significance• These results show that with proper storage venoms are useful for decades.• These results have direct implications for the use of rare venoms.

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“…As selection takes place at the level of the gene, the death of the individual lizard does not preclude strong selection for "bulldog tenacity" in defensive bites, as presumably this tactic maximises the unpleasantness of the encounter for the aggressor, thus ensuring it avoids such encounters in future. However the overall pharmacological profile of the venom includes components with lethal neurological effects or other severe physiological targeting, actions not consistent with a purely defensive role for the venom as defensive toxins are typically pain inducing (Casewell et al, 2013). Rather such lethal effects point towards the venoms having at least some role in predation.…”

Section: Figure 1: Reduced and Non-reduced Tris-tricine 1d-gel Comparmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The absence of diversity in venom-composition and toxinencoding genes within the sister Heloderma lineages suggest that the venoms are not evolving under the diversifying selection pressure characteristic of the predator-prey "chemical arms races" in which venomous organisms utilising their venom for prey subjugation find themselves (Sunagar et al, 2014;Brust et al, 2013;Casewell et al, 2013;. However, as noted above, there are obvious variations in relative expression levels within toxin classes and thus these relative expression levels may be a novel form of diversification.…”

Section: Figure 1: Reduced and Non-reduced Tris-tricine 1d-gel Comparmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An investigation of the evolution of the anguimorph lizard venom system

Koludarov¹

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Over the course of the last two decades significant advances were made in our understanding of the evolution of venom in squamate reptiles. Several studies looked at nuclear genes from various lizards and snakes and confirmed the hypothesis put forth in E. Kochva's article "Phylogeny of the oral glands in reptiles as related to the origin and evolution of snakes" -that anguimorph lizards form part of a monophyletic clade with all the snakes. This confirmation confounded decades of morphology based taxonomy, as did evidence of the inclusion of the Iguania lizard lineage into that group. The new group received the name Toxicofera, emphasizing the role of oral toxins in the evolution of the lineage. Despite being supported by genetic, anatomical and proteomic data, the Toxicofera hypothesis remains controversial. This strengthens the necessity for thorough investigation of toxicoferan reptile venom evolution. The oral secretions of anguimorph lizards demand particular attention not only because they are understudied, but also for the reason that Anguimorpha contains species with the considerable morphological diversity of venom glands -from incipient to advanced and almost snake-like.Therefore the primary goal of this thesis is to address the lack of knowledge on anguimorph lizard oral secretions, in particular that of varanoid lizards which include various monitor species (genus Varanus) as well as Heloderma (gila monster) and Lanthanotus (Borneo earless monitor). This has been achieved through the implementation of several proteomic techniques (in particular, gel electrophoresis) as well as transcriptomic analysis and bioactivity testings.Chapter One reviews all previously published information on anguimorph venom evolution, highlighting the data in support of the Toxicofera hypothesis. Chapter Two presents new data on Heloderma lizard venoms and the striking similarities between the venom profiles of specimens from different localities as well as between species. The data presented and discussed in Chapter Three represents the core finding of this study: the surprising complexity and diversity of varanid lizard oral secretions.Taken together, this study present a compelling argument in favour of functional diversity and differential complexity of the venom of anguimorph lizards and discusses the evolutionary forces that helped generate this diversity.

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Complex cocktails: the evolutionary novelty of venoms

Cited by 794 publications

References 93 publications

An efficient transcriptome analysis pipeline to accelerate venom peptide discovery and characterisation

An efficient transcriptome analysis pipeline to accelerate venom peptide discovery and characterisation

Vintage venoms: Proteomic and pharmacological stability of snake venoms stored for up to eight decades

An investigation of the evolution of the anguimorph lizard venom system

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