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Assembling an arsenal, the scorpion way.

Adi Kozminsky-Atias1, Adi Bar-Shalom, Dan Mishmar

  • 1Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel. adiko@bgu.ac.il

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Scorpion venom evolution reveals distinct selective pressures on toxin genes. The mature toxin diversifies, while the leader peptide and its DNA sequence are conserved, shaping toxin family-specific codon bias.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Molecular biology
  • Biochemistry

Background:

  • Scorpions utilize diverse short neurotoxic polypeptides for survival.
  • Buthida scorpion venoms are rich sources of small peptides (23-78 amino acids) stabilized by disulfide bridges, impacting ion channel function.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the evolutionary pathways of scorpion toxin diversification.
  • To elucidate the mechanism behind leader peptide hyper-conservation in scorpion toxins.
  • To understand the selective forces shaping scorpion toxin genes.

Main Methods:

  • Construction of a toxin transcripts dataset from the venom gland of Buthus occitanus israelis.
  • Comparative analysis of toxin gene evolution and substitution rates.
  • Investigation of selection pressures on both mature toxin and leader peptide sequences.

Main Results:

  • Toxins within a family are more closely related across species, suggesting gene duplication followed by speciation and gene conversion.
  • Mature toxin domains exhibit high substitution rates due to diversifying selection.
  • Leader peptide sequences show hyper-conservation with atypical sub-neutral synonymous substitution rates, indicating purifying selection on both peptide and DNA.

Conclusions:

  • Scorpion toxin genes are shaped by three distinct selective forces: diversifying selection on mature toxins, and purifying selection on both amino acid and DNA sequences of the leader peptide.
  • This multi-level selection creates toxin family-specific codon bias.
  • The findings provide novel insights into the evolution of venom complexity and regulation.