Venom gland transcriptomics and microRNA profiling of juvenile and adult yellow-bellied sea snake, Hydrophis platurus, from Playa del Coco (Guanacaste, Costa Rica)

Durbán, Jordi; Sasa, Mahmood; Calvete, Juan J.

doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2018.08.016

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Common small ncRNAs are microRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate gene expression by influencing mRNA stability and translation [ 179 , 180 , 181 ]. In snakes, transcriptional miRNAs in juvenile and adult yellow-bellied sea snakes ( Hydrophis platurus , Linnaeus, 1766) [ 142 ] from Costa Rica act as repressors and enhancers to regulate the mRNA translation of venom toxins [ 182 ]. In the king cobra genome, miR-375 miRNA is expressed in venom glands and regulates core gene networks that are important in the evolution of snake venom glands [ 13 ].…”

Section: Putative Impact Of Transposable Element Transcripts On the Evolutionary Dynamics Of Snakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Repetitive DNA Elements on Snake Genome Biology and Evolution

Ahmad

Singchat

Panthum

et al. 2021

Cells

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The distinctive biology and unique evolutionary features of snakes make them fascinating model systems to elucidate how genomes evolve and how variation at the genomic level is interlinked with phenotypic-level evolution. Similar to other eukaryotic genomes, large proportions of snake genomes contain repetitive DNA, including transposable elements (TEs) and satellite repeats. The importance of repetitive DNA and its structural and functional role in the snake genome, remain unclear. This review highlights the major types of repeats and their proportions in snake genomes, reflecting the high diversity and composition of snake repeats. We present snakes as an emerging and important model system for the study of repetitive DNA under the impact of sex and microchromosome evolution. We assemble evidence to show that certain repetitive elements in snakes are transcriptionally active and demonstrate highly dynamic lineage-specific patterns as repeat sequences. We hypothesize that particular TEs can trigger different genomic mechanisms that might contribute to driving adaptive evolution in snakes. Finally, we review emerging approaches that may be used to study the expression of repetitive elements in complex genomes, such as snakes. The specific aspects presented here will stimulate further discussion on the role of genomic repeats in shaping snake evolution.

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Section: Putative Impact Of Transposable Element Transcripts On the Evolutionary Dynamics Of Snakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Repetitive DNA Elements on Snake Genome Biology and Evolution

Ahmad

Singchat

Panthum

et al. 2021

Cells

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“…Many of the eightcysteine toxins that did retain the ancestral activity have evolved greatly increased toxicity to the extent that α-bungarotoxin has seen widespread use as an experimental tool because of its potency and specificity [24,37]. These 3FTx are the primary functional toxins in many elapid venoms and are responsible for the danger posed by many species, including those from the genera Naja (cobras), Dendroaspis (mambas), Micrurus (coral snakes), and the subfamily Hydrophiinae (sea snakes and Australian elapids) [38][39][40][41][42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electric Blue: Molecular Evolution of Three-Finger Toxins in the Long-Glanded Coral Snake Species Calliophis bivirgatus

Dashevsky

Rokyta

Frank

et al. 2021

Toxins

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The genus Calliophis is the most basal branch of the family Elapidae and several species in it have developed highly elongated venom glands. Recent research has shown that C. bivirgatus has evolved a seemingly unique toxin (calliotoxin) that produces spastic paralysis in their prey by acting on the voltage-gated sodium (NaV) channels. We assembled a transcriptome from C. bivirgatus to investigate the molecular characteristics of these toxins and the venom as a whole. We find strong confirmation that this genus produces the classic elapid eight-cysteine three-finger toxins, that δδ-elapitoxins (toxins that resemble calliotoxin) are responsible for a substantial portion of the venom composition, and that these toxins form a distinct clade within a larger, more diverse clade of C. bivirgatus three-finger toxins. This broader clade of C. bivirgatus toxins also contains the previously named maticotoxins and is somewhat closely related to cytotoxins from other elapids. However, the toxins from this clade that have been characterized are not themselves cytotoxic. No other toxins show clear relationships to toxins of known function from other species.

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“…Of the studies carried out in the past decade to assess the diversity of toxin-coding genes at the venom-gland transcriptomic level in snakes, only four focused on sea snakes ( Acalyptophis peronii , H. curtus and Hydrophis platurus ) [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 35 ]. Compared with H. curtus (22 protein families, Figure 3 B,C; [ 24 , 29 ]) and H. platurus (15 protein families, Figure 3 D; [ 27 ]), H. cyanocinctus (24 protein families) displayed a relatively high diversity of toxin-coding unigenes from the venom-gland transcriptome. Similar to the venom-gland transcriptome reported previously for sea snakes [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 34 ], the PLA 2 and 3-FTx families constituted the most abundant components in the toxin-coding unigenes of the H. cyanocinctus venom-gland transcriptome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, from an evolutionary perspective, the venom system in sea snakes can enhance their secondary adaption to the marine environment. Recent studies on sea snakes of the genus Hydrophis show that venom toxins are far more diverse at the mRNA level than at the protein level [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Further elucidation of the diversity of venom toxins at both protein and mRNA levels would therefore facilitate our understanding of adaptive radiation of sea snakes, especially the taxonomic groups, such as the genus Hydrophis , with high speciation rates [ 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Venom of the Annulated Sea Snake Hydrophis cyanocinctus: A Biochemically Simple but Genetically Complex Weapon

Zhao

Sun

et al. 2021

Toxins

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Given that the venom system in sea snakes has a role in enhancing their secondary adaption to the marine environment, it follows that elucidating the diversity and function of venom toxins will help to understand the adaptive radiation of sea snakes. We performed proteomic and de novo NGS analyses to explore the diversity of venom toxins in the annulated sea snake (Hydrophis cyanocinctus) and estimated the adaptive molecular evolution of the toxin-coding unigenes and the toxicity of the major components. We found three-finger toxins (3-FTxs), phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and cysteine-rich secretory protein (CRISP) in the venom proteome and 59 toxin-coding unigenes belonging to 24 protein families in the venom-gland transcriptome; 3-FTx and PLA2 were the most abundant families. Nearly half of the toxin-coding unigenes had undergone positive selection. The short- (i.p. 0.09 μg/g) and long-chain neurotoxin (i.p. 0.14 μg/g) presented fairly high toxicity, whereas both basic and acidic PLA2s expressed low toxicity. The toxicity of H. cyanocinctus venom was largely determined by the 3-FTxs. Our data show the venom is used by H. cyanocinctus as a biochemically simple but genetically complex weapon and venom evolution in H. cyanocinctus is presumably driven by natural selection to deal with fast-moving prey and enemies in the marine environment.

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Venom gland transcriptomics and microRNA profiling of juvenile and adult yellow-bellied sea snake, Hydrophis platurus, from Playa del Coco (Guanacaste, Costa Rica)

Cited by 16 publications

References 92 publications

Impact of Repetitive DNA Elements on Snake Genome Biology and Evolution

Impact of Repetitive DNA Elements on Snake Genome Biology and Evolution

Electric Blue: Molecular Evolution of Three-Finger Toxins in the Long-Glanded Coral Snake Species Calliophis bivirgatus

Venom of the Annulated Sea Snake Hydrophis cyanocinctus: A Biochemically Simple but Genetically Complex Weapon

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