Venomics of the spider Ornithoctonus huwena based on transcriptomic versus proteomic analysis

The spider Ornithoctonus huwena is a venomous spider found in southern China. Its venom is a complex mixture of numerous biologically active components. In this study, 41 novel unique transcripts encoding cellular proteins or other possible venom components were generated from the previously constructed cDNA library. These proteins were also annotated by KOG (eukaryotic orthologous group) and GO (gene ontology) terms. A novel cellular transcript contig encoding an EF-hand protein (named HWEFHP1) was found, which might be involved in the secretion of toxins in the venom glands. In order to have an overview of the molecular diversity of the O. huwena venom, the datasets of all the transcripts, peptides and proteins known so far were analyzed. A comparison of the data obtained through a proteomic versus a transcriptomic approach, revealed that only 15 putative cystine knot toxins (CKTs) were identified by both approaches, 29 transcripts coding for CKTs were found in the transcriptome but not as translated peptides in the venom proteome. However, no cellular protein with identical molecular weight was identified by both approaches. Our data may contribute to a deeper understanding of the biology and ecology of O. huwena and the relationship between structure and function of individual toxins.