Toxin diversity revealed by a transcriptomic study of Ornithoctonus huwena

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 20;9(6):e100682. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100682. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Spider venom comprises a mixture of compounds with diverse biological activities, which are used to capture prey and defend against predators. The peptide components bind a broad range of cellular targets with high affinity and selectivity, and appear to have remarkable structural diversity. Although spider venoms have been intensively investigated over the past few decades, venomic strategies to date have generally focused on high-abundance peptides. In addition, the lack of complete spider genomes or representative cDNA libraries has presented significant limitations for researchers interested in molecular diversity and understanding the genetic mechanisms of toxin evolution. In the present study, second-generation sequencing technologies, combined with proteomic analysis, were applied to determine the diverse peptide toxins in venom of the Chinese bird spider Ornithoctonus huwena. In total, 626 toxin precursor sequences were retrieved from transcriptomic data. All toxin precursors clustered into 16 gene superfamilies, which included six novel superfamilies and six novel cysteine patterns. A surprisingly high number of hypermutations and fragment insertions/deletions were detected, which accounted for the majority of toxin gene sequences with low-level expression. These mutations contribute to the formation of diverse cysteine patterns and highly variable isoforms. Furthermore, intraspecific venom variability, in combination with variable transcripts and peptide processing, contributes to the hypervariability of toxins in venoms, and associated rapid and adaptive evolution of toxins for prey capture and defense.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Arachnida / chemistry
  • Arachnida / genetics*
  • Gene Expression Profiling*
  • Gene Library
  • Phylogeny
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Spider Venoms / chemistry
  • Spider Venoms / genetics*
  • Toxins, Biological / biosynthesis*
  • Toxins, Biological / classification
  • Toxins, Biological / genetics

Substances

  • Spider Venoms
  • Toxins, Biological

Grants and funding

Funding came from: 1. The National Basic Research Program of China (973), 2010CB529800 and 2012CB22305 and 2. The Cooperative Innovation Center of Engineering and New Products for Developmental Biology of Hunan Province (20134486). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.