Journal article
Novel venom gene discovery in the platypus
CM Whittington, AT Papenfuss, DP Locke, ER Mardis, RK Wilson, S Abubucker, M Mitreva, ESW Wong, AL Hsu, PW Kuchel, K Belov, WC Warren
Genome Biology | BIOMED CENTRAL LTD | Published : 2010
Abstract
Background: To date, few peptides in the complex mixture of platypus venom have been identified and sequenced, in part due to the limited amounts of platypus venom available to study. We have constructed and sequenced a cDNA library from an active platypus venom gland to identify the remaining components.Results: We identified 83 novel putative platypus venom genes from 13 toxin families, which are homologous to known toxins from a wide range of vertebrates (fish, reptiles, insectivores) and invertebrates (spiders, sea anemones, starfish). A number of these are expressed in tissues other than the venom gland, and at least three of these families (those with homology to toxins from distant in..
View full abstractGrants
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Erin Noonan, Stephen Pyecroft, David Obendorf, Sarah Peck, and the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water for their provision of opportunistically collected platypus tissue samples, without which this work would not have been possible, and Richard Whittington for histological confirmation of the venom gland tissues. We are also very grateful for the assistance of John Martin, Jason Walker, Todd Wylie, Chad Tomlinson, Pat Minx, Sean McGrath, Amy Ly, Khaing Soe, Ryan Demeter, Kevin Haub and Vincent Magrini, who provided invaluable training and advice on wet lab methodologies and data analysis. CW is supported by a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship, Australian Postgraduate Award, and University of Sydney Grant-in-Aid.