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Adaptive evolution of the venom-targeted vWF protein in opossums that eat pitvipers. | LitMetric

Adaptive evolution of the venom-targeted vWF protein in opossums that eat pitvipers.

PLoS One

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, and J.F. Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, United States of America.

Published: November 2011

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study discusses how the evolution of venom toxin genes may not align with the traditional arms race concept, due to a lack of evidence for prey developing resistance.
  • The researchers found that opossums, which regularly eat pitvipers, exhibit rapid adaptive evolution in their von Willebrand Factor gene, enabling them to resist pitviper venom.
  • These findings suggest that an evolutionary arms race can occur with venomous snakes as prey and highlight the complex interactions between predator and prey in the context of venom resistance.

Article Abstract

The rapid evolution of venom toxin genes is often explained as the result of a biochemical arms race between venomous animals and their prey. However, it is not clear that an arms race analogy is appropriate in this context because there is no published evidence for rapid evolution in genes that might confer toxin resistance among routinely envenomed species. Here we report such evidence from an unusual predator-prey relationship between opossums (Marsupialia: Didelphidae) and pitvipers (Serpentes: Crotalinae). In particular, we found high ratios of replacement to silent substitutions in the gene encoding von Willebrand Factor (vWF), a venom-targeted hemostatic blood protein, in a clade of opossums known to eat pitvipers and to be resistant to their hemorrhagic venom. Observed amino-acid substitutions in venom-resistant opossums include changes in net charge and hydrophobicity that are hypothesized to weaken the bond between vWF and one of its toxic snake-venom ligands, the C-type lectin-like protein botrocetin. Our results provide the first example of rapid adaptive evolution in any venom-targeted molecule, and they support the notion that an evolutionary arms race might be driving the rapid evolution of snake venoms. However, in the arms race implied by our results, venomous snakes are prey, and their venom has a correspondingly defensive function in addition to its usual trophic role.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3120824PMC
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020997PLOS

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