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Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians
Amphibians are known for their skin rich in glands containing toxins employed in passive chemical defense against predators, different from, for example, snakes that have active chemical defense, injecting their venom into the prey. Caecilians (Amphibia, Gymnophiona) are snake-shaped animals with fo...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7385905/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32621800 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101234 |
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author | Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz Antoniazzi, Marta Maria Alexandre, Cesar Pimenta, Daniel Carvalho Sciani, Juliana Mozer Brodie, Edmund D. Jared, Carlos |
author_facet | Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz Antoniazzi, Marta Maria Alexandre, Cesar Pimenta, Daniel Carvalho Sciani, Juliana Mozer Brodie, Edmund D. Jared, Carlos |
author_sort | Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz |
collection | PubMed |
description | Amphibians are known for their skin rich in glands containing toxins employed in passive chemical defense against predators, different from, for example, snakes that have active chemical defense, injecting their venom into the prey. Caecilians (Amphibia, Gymnophiona) are snake-shaped animals with fossorial habits, considered one of the least known vertebrate groups. We show here that amphibian caecilians, including species from the basal groups, besides having cutaneous poisonous glands as other amphibians do, possess specific glands at the base of the teeth that produce enzymes commonly found in venoms. Our analysis of the origin of these glands shows that they originate from the same tissue that gives rise to teeth, similar to the venom glands in reptiles. We speculate that caecilians might have independently developed mechanisms of production and injection of toxins early in their evolutionary history. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7385905 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Elsevier |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73859052020-07-30 Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz Antoniazzi, Marta Maria Alexandre, Cesar Pimenta, Daniel Carvalho Sciani, Juliana Mozer Brodie, Edmund D. Jared, Carlos iScience Article Amphibians are known for their skin rich in glands containing toxins employed in passive chemical defense against predators, different from, for example, snakes that have active chemical defense, injecting their venom into the prey. Caecilians (Amphibia, Gymnophiona) are snake-shaped animals with fossorial habits, considered one of the least known vertebrate groups. We show here that amphibian caecilians, including species from the basal groups, besides having cutaneous poisonous glands as other amphibians do, possess specific glands at the base of the teeth that produce enzymes commonly found in venoms. Our analysis of the origin of these glands shows that they originate from the same tissue that gives rise to teeth, similar to the venom glands in reptiles. We speculate that caecilians might have independently developed mechanisms of production and injection of toxins early in their evolutionary history. Elsevier 2020-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7385905/ /pubmed/32621800 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101234 Text en © 2020 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz Antoniazzi, Marta Maria Alexandre, Cesar Pimenta, Daniel Carvalho Sciani, Juliana Mozer Brodie, Edmund D. Jared, Carlos Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title | Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title_full | Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title_fullStr | Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title_full_unstemmed | Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title_short | Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians |
title_sort | morphological evidence for an oral venom system in caecilian amphibians |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7385905/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32621800 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101234 |
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