Characterising Functional Venom Profiles of Anthozoans and Medusozoans within Their Ecological Context

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Abstract

This review examines the current state of knowledge regarding toxins from anthozoans (sea anemones, coral, zoanthids, corallimorphs, sea pens and tube anemones). We provide an overview of venom from phylum Cnidaria and review the diversity of venom composition between the two major clades (Medusozoa and Anthozoa). We highlight that the functional and ecological context of venom has implications for the temporal and spatial expression of protein and peptide toxins within class Anthozoa. Understanding the nuances in the regulation of venom arsenals has been made possible by recent advances in analytical technologies that allow characterisation of the spatial distributions of toxins. Furthermore, anthozoans are unique in that ecological roles can be assigned using tissue expression data, thereby circumventing some of the challenges related to pharmacological screening.

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Most cited references 133

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Sea anemone genome reveals ancestral eumetazoan gene repertoire and genomic organization.

N. H. Putnam, M Srivastava, U Hellsten … (2007)

Sea anemones are seemingly primitive animals that, along with corals, jellyfish, and hydras, constitute the oldest eumetazoan phylum, the Cnidaria. Here, we report a comparative analysis of the draft genome of an emerging cnidarian model, the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. The sea anemone genome is complex, with a gene repertoire, exon-intron structure, and large-scale gene linkage more similar to vertebrates than to flies or nematodes, implying that the genome of the eumetazoan ancestor was similarly complex. Nearly one-fifth of the inferred genes of the ancestor are eumetazoan novelties, which are enriched for animal functions like cell signaling, adhesion, and synaptic transmission. Analysis of diverse pathways suggests that these gene "inventions" along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.

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Complex cocktails: the evolutionary novelty of venoms.

Nicholas R. Casewell, Wolfgang Wüster, Freek J. Vonk … (2013)

Venoms have evolved on numerous occasions throughout the animal kingdom. These 'biochemical weapon systems' typically function to facilitate, or protect the producing animal from, predation. Most venomous animals remain unstudied despite venoms providing model systems for investigating predator-prey interactions, molecular evolution, functional convergence, and novel targets for pharmaceutical discovery. Through advances in 'omic' technologies, venom composition data have recently become available for several venomous lineages, revealing considerable complexity in the processes responsible for generating the genetic and functional diversity observed in many venoms. Here, we review these recent advances and highlight the ecological and evolutionary novelty of venom systems. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution.

Steve Paterson, Tom Vogwill, Angus Buckling … (2010)

The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that coevolution of interacting species (such as hosts and parasites) should drive molecular evolution through continual natural selection for adaptation and counter-adaptation. Although the divergence observed at some host-resistance and parasite-infectivity genes is consistent with this, the long time periods typically required to study coevolution have so far prevented any direct empirical test. Here we show, using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its viral parasite, phage Phi2 (refs 10, 11), that the rate of molecular evolution in the phage was far higher when both bacterium and phage coevolved with each other than when phage evolved against a constant host genotype. Coevolution also resulted in far greater genetic divergence between replicate populations, which was correlated with the range of hosts that coevolved phage were able to infect. Consistent with this, the most rapidly evolving phage genes under coevolution were those involved in host infection. These results demonstrate, at both the genomic and phenotypic level, that antagonistic coevolution is a cause of rapid and divergent evolution, and is likely to be a major driver of evolutionary change within species.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Mar Drugs

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Mar Drugs

Journal ID (publisher-id): marinedrugs

Title: Marine Drugs

Publisher: MDPI

ISSN (Electronic): 1660-3397

Publication date (Electronic): 09 April 2020

Publication date Collection: April 2020

Volume: 18

Issue: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: 202

Affiliations

[1 ]School of Biology and Environmental Science, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia

[2 ]Medicinal Chemistry, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia

[3 ]ARC Centre for Fragment-Based Design, Monash University, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia

[4 ]Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

[5 ]Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway

[6 ]Centre for Advanced Imaging, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

[7 ]Institute of Future Environments, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia

Author notes

[* ]Correspondence: p.prentis@ 123456qut.edu.au

Author information

Lauren M. Ashwood https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2718-2487

Raymond S. Norton https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8893-0584

Eivind A. B. Undheim https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8667-3999

Peter J. Prentis https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6587-8875

Article

Publisher ID: marinedrugs-18-00202

DOI: 10.3390/md18040202

PMC ID: 7230708

PubMed ID: 32283847

SO-VID: c858ef50-6bb6-4044-8ca4-06b2240b9d83

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Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Characterising Functional Venom Profiles of Anthozoans and Medusozoans within Their Ecological Context

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Abstract

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Functional role of amyloid

Most cited references 133

Sea anemone genome reveals ancestral eumetazoan gene repertoire and genomic organization.

Complex cocktails: the evolutionary novelty of venoms.

Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution.

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