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Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study

Animal venoms are promising sources of novel drug leads, but their translational potential is hampered by the low success rate of earlier biodiscovery programs, in part reflecting the narrow selection of targets for investigation. To increase the number of lead candidates, here we discuss a phylogen...

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Autores principales: Lüddecke, Tim, Vilcinskas, Andreas, Lemke, Sarah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6784122/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31450685
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11090488
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author Lüddecke, Tim
Vilcinskas, Andreas
Lemke, Sarah
author_facet Lüddecke, Tim
Vilcinskas, Andreas
Lemke, Sarah
author_sort Lüddecke, Tim
collection PubMed
description Animal venoms are promising sources of novel drug leads, but their translational potential is hampered by the low success rate of earlier biodiscovery programs, in part reflecting the narrow selection of targets for investigation. To increase the number of lead candidates, here we discuss a phylogeny-guided approach for the rational selection of venomous taxa, using tarantulas (family Theraphosidae) as a case study. We found that previous biodiscovery programs have prioritized the three subfamilies Ornithoctoninae, Selenocosmiinae, and Theraphosinae, which provide almost all of the toxin sequences currently available in public databases. The remaining subfamilies are poorly represented, if at all. These overlooked subfamilies include several that form entire clades of the theraphosid life tree, such as the subfamilies Eumenophorinae, Harpactirinae, and Stromatopelminae, indicating that biodiversity space has not been covered effectively for venom biodiscovery in Theraphosidae. Focusing on these underrepresented taxa will increase the likelihood that promising candidates with novel structures and mechanisms of action can be identified in future bioprospecting programs.
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spelling pubmed-67841222019-10-16 Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study Lüddecke, Tim Vilcinskas, Andreas Lemke, Sarah Toxins (Basel) Communication Animal venoms are promising sources of novel drug leads, but their translational potential is hampered by the low success rate of earlier biodiscovery programs, in part reflecting the narrow selection of targets for investigation. To increase the number of lead candidates, here we discuss a phylogeny-guided approach for the rational selection of venomous taxa, using tarantulas (family Theraphosidae) as a case study. We found that previous biodiscovery programs have prioritized the three subfamilies Ornithoctoninae, Selenocosmiinae, and Theraphosinae, which provide almost all of the toxin sequences currently available in public databases. The remaining subfamilies are poorly represented, if at all. These overlooked subfamilies include several that form entire clades of the theraphosid life tree, such as the subfamilies Eumenophorinae, Harpactirinae, and Stromatopelminae, indicating that biodiversity space has not been covered effectively for venom biodiscovery in Theraphosidae. Focusing on these underrepresented taxa will increase the likelihood that promising candidates with novel structures and mechanisms of action can be identified in future bioprospecting programs. MDPI 2019-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC6784122/ /pubmed/31450685 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11090488 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Lüddecke, Tim
Vilcinskas, Andreas
Lemke, Sarah
Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title_full Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title_fullStr Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title_full_unstemmed Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title_short Phylogeny-Guided Selection of Priority Groups for Venom Bioprospecting: Harvesting Toxin Sequences in Tarantulas as a Case Study
title_sort phylogeny-guided selection of priority groups for venom bioprospecting: harvesting toxin sequences in tarantulas as a case study
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6784122/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31450685
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins11090488
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