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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...

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Autores principales: Mailho-Fontana, Pedro Luiz, Antoniazzi, Marta Maria, Alexandre, Cesar, Pimenta, Daniel Carvalho, Sciani, Juliana Mozer, Brodie, Edmund D., Jared, Carlos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
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.
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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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