Evolution of Animal Toxins

Dear Colleagues,

Many animals rely on the production of complex venoms for predation and defense. Animal venoms have evolved through millions of years of natural selection in a co-evolutionary process involving the prey and the predator that is often referred to as an “arms race”. As such, they are extremely efficient, being usually effective at a very low concentration via highly specific interactions with key physiological targets (ion channels, enzymes, and membrane receptors). Animal toxins are valuable systems for understanding a variety of different evolutionary processes, including those relating to convergence, adaptive molecular evolution, gene duplication, and protein neofunctionalization. Recent studies have revealed that a limited number of toxin scaffolds have been convergently recruited by two or more venomous lineages. The evolution of animal toxin families through the “birth and death” model is often accompanied by strong evidence of adaptive evolution. Positive selection prevails in venomous animals and acts mostly on the surface-exposed amino acid residues. The modification of surface-exposed residues may facilitate neofunctionalization of the animal toxins by modification of protein–target interactions. The role of gene duplication is crucial to organismal evolution by facilitating the evolution of new protein functions. Gene duplication can also contribute to gene dosage effects (where the protein dosage is increased by the duplication of protein-coding genes), which might be particularly relevant to the production of highly potent animal toxins. Gene duplication, positive selection, and protein neofunctionalization therefore work together to provide the evolutionary novelty that allows for adaptation of animal toxins to different prey, as well as overcoming prey defenses against them.

This Special Issue of Toxins will accept original research articles and authoritative reviews on any aspect of the evolution of animal toxins. It aims to provide readers with an updated and comprehensive picture of this exciting area of research.

Prof. Dr. Dušan Kordiš
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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