Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers

Although snake venoms have been the subject of intense research, primarily because of their tremendous potential as a bioresource for design and development of therapeutic compounds, some specific groups of snakes, such as the genus Atractaspis, have been completely neglected. To date only limited n...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Terrat, Yves, Sunagar, Kartik, Fry, Bryan G., Jackson, Timothy N. W., Scheib, Holger, Fourmy, Rudy, Verdenaud, Marion, Blanchet, Guillaume, Antunes, Agostinho, Ducancel, Frederic
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24169588
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins5111948
_version_ 1782293649602641920
author Terrat, Yves
Sunagar, Kartik
Fry, Bryan G.
Jackson, Timothy N. W.
Scheib, Holger
Fourmy, Rudy
Verdenaud, Marion
Blanchet, Guillaume
Antunes, Agostinho
Ducancel, Frederic
author_facet Terrat, Yves
Sunagar, Kartik
Fry, Bryan G.
Jackson, Timothy N. W.
Scheib, Holger
Fourmy, Rudy
Verdenaud, Marion
Blanchet, Guillaume
Antunes, Agostinho
Ducancel, Frederic
author_sort Terrat, Yves
collection PubMed
description Although snake venoms have been the subject of intense research, primarily because of their tremendous potential as a bioresource for design and development of therapeutic compounds, some specific groups of snakes, such as the genus Atractaspis, have been completely neglected. To date only limited number of toxins, such as sarafotoxins have been well characterized from this lineage. In order to investigate the molecular diversity of venom from Atractaspis aterrima—the slender burrowing asp, we utilized a high-throughput transcriptomic approach completed with an original bioinformatics analysis pipeline. Surprisingly, we found that Sarafotoxins do not constitute the major ingredient of the transcriptomic cocktail; rather a large number of previously well-characterized snake venom-components were identified. Notably, we recovered a large diversity of three-finger toxins (3FTxs), which were found to have evolved under the significant influence of positive selection. From the normalized and non-normalized transcriptome libraries, we were able to evaluate the relative abundance of the different toxin groups, uncover rare transcripts, and gain new insight into the transcriptomic machinery. In addition to previously characterized toxin families, we were able to detect numerous highly-transcribed compounds that possess all the key features of venom-components and may constitute new classes of toxins.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3847709
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2013
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-38477092013-12-03 Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers Terrat, Yves Sunagar, Kartik Fry, Bryan G. Jackson, Timothy N. W. Scheib, Holger Fourmy, Rudy Verdenaud, Marion Blanchet, Guillaume Antunes, Agostinho Ducancel, Frederic Toxins (Basel) Article Although snake venoms have been the subject of intense research, primarily because of their tremendous potential as a bioresource for design and development of therapeutic compounds, some specific groups of snakes, such as the genus Atractaspis, have been completely neglected. To date only limited number of toxins, such as sarafotoxins have been well characterized from this lineage. In order to investigate the molecular diversity of venom from Atractaspis aterrima—the slender burrowing asp, we utilized a high-throughput transcriptomic approach completed with an original bioinformatics analysis pipeline. Surprisingly, we found that Sarafotoxins do not constitute the major ingredient of the transcriptomic cocktail; rather a large number of previously well-characterized snake venom-components were identified. Notably, we recovered a large diversity of three-finger toxins (3FTxs), which were found to have evolved under the significant influence of positive selection. From the normalized and non-normalized transcriptome libraries, we were able to evaluate the relative abundance of the different toxin groups, uncover rare transcripts, and gain new insight into the transcriptomic machinery. In addition to previously characterized toxin families, we were able to detect numerous highly-transcribed compounds that possess all the key features of venom-components and may constitute new classes of toxins. MDPI 2013-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3847709/ /pubmed/24169588 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins5111948 Text en © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Terrat, Yves
Sunagar, Kartik
Fry, Bryan G.
Jackson, Timothy N. W.
Scheib, Holger
Fourmy, Rudy
Verdenaud, Marion
Blanchet, Guillaume
Antunes, Agostinho
Ducancel, Frederic
Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title_full Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title_fullStr Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title_full_unstemmed Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title_short Atractaspis aterrima Toxins: The First Insight into the Molecular Evolution of Venom in Side-Stabbers
title_sort atractaspis aterrima toxins: the first insight into the molecular evolution of venom in side-stabbers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24169588
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins5111948
work_keys_str_mv AT terratyves atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT sunagarkartik atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT frybryang atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT jacksontimothynw atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT scheibholger atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT fourmyrudy atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT verdenaudmarion atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT blanchetguillaume atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT antunesagostinho atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers
AT ducancelfrederic atractaspisaterrimatoxinsthefirstinsightintothemolecularevolutionofvenominsidestabbers