From genome to "venome"

From genome to "venome" ››
Bryan Fry shows that snake toxin genes have been recruited mostly via lineage-specific gene duplications from all over metabolism. Mutation of salivary proteins into venoms was surprisingly rarer. All the proteins still retain some ancestral function, and in many cases this function is reflected in their toxic effect. For example, snake ancestral phospholipid recycling enzymes have been recruited as membrane-targeting lipases and snake blood pressure regulatory proteins as potent hypertension inducers. The venom ancestral genes have almost nothing in common with each other apart from being secretory and being more likely to contain cysteine bridges. This last is pointed out as being a feature of multifunctional gene families; certainly true of cytochrome P450s (via News@Nature.com and ScienceNOW)
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