Venom Variation during Prey Capture by the Cone Snail, Conus textile

Abstract

Observations of the mollusc-hunting cone snail Conus textile during feeding reveal that prey are often stung multiple times in succession. While studies on the venom peptides injected by fish-hunting cone snails have become common, these approaches have not been widely applied to the analysis of the injected venoms from mollusc-hunters. We have successfully obtained multiple injected venom samples from C. textile individuals, allowing us to investigate venom compositional variation during prey capture. Our studies indicate that C. textile individuals alter the composition of prey-injected venom peptides during single feeding events. The qualitative results obtained by MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry are mirrored by quantitative changes in venom composition observed by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography. While it is unclear why mollusc-hunting cone snails inject prey multiple times prior to engulfment, our study establishes for the first time a link between this behavior and compositional changes of the venom during prey capture. Changes in venom composition during hunting may represent a multi-step strategy utilized by these venomous animals to slow and incapacitate prey prior to engulfment.

Intraspecific variations in Conus purpurascens injected venom using LC/MALDI-TOF-MS and LC-ESI-TripleTOF-MS

“…Variations in the more biologically relevant injected venom of the fishhunting species C. striatus, C. catus [16], Conus consors [19], Conus ermineus [20], and Conus purpurascens [21] have been reported. Variations within an individual specimen's injected venom over time (C. consors [19], C. textile [22], C. purpurascens [21]) have also been observed. All these studies use conventional bioanalytical approaches that lead to the characterization of the major components of the venom.…”

Combined Peptidomic and Proteomic Analysis of Electrically Stimulated and Manually Dissected Venom from the South American Bullet Ant Paraponera clavata

“…This has been previously observed with other ant species such as Odontomachus haematodus 80 , Dinoponera quadriceps 53 and other venomous organisms including marine cone snails 11 and wasps 64 . The reason for these marked differences has been attributed to different factors such as age, size, differential gene expression, altered post-translational modifications and, in the case of ants, genetic polymorphisms that result from the queens mating with different males during their lifetime 64,81 . It has also been previously shown that although the organisms are from the same region, as was the case with these colonies, slight environmental differences between the two colonies may explain the differences seen 53,64 .…”

Conotoxin Diversity in Chelyconus ermineus (Born, 1778) and the Convergent Origin of Piscivory in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Cones

“…The shape and number of barbs of the hollow radular tooth as well as the feeding behavior of cone snails appear to be, at least in some cases, adapted to capturing most efficiently the different types of prey. For instance, some molluscivorous cones make successive injections of radular teeth into the prey ( Prator et al. 2014 ) whereas piscivorous cones show up to three different hunting modes including electrical stunning and tethering of single preys using the proboscis, engulfing of several prey fish at once by the rostrum, and flailing the proboscis around the fish without tethering ( Olivera et al.…”