Dashevsky, Daniel, Harris, Richard J., Zdenek, Christina N., Benard-Valle, Melisa, Alagón, Alejandro, Portes-Junior, José A., Tanaka-Azevedo, Anita M., Grego, Kathleen F., Sant’Anna, Sávio S., Frank, Nathaniel, and Fry, Bryan G. (2024) Red-on-Yellow Queen: Bio-Layer Interferometry Reveals Functional Diversity Within Micrurus Venoms and Toxin Resistance in Prey Species. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 92. pp. 317-328.

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Abstract

Snakes in the family Elapidae largely produce venoms rich in three-finger toxins (3FTx) that bind to the α subunit of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), impeding ion channel activity. These neurotoxins immobilize the prey by disrupting muscle contraction. Coral snakes of the genus Micrurus are specialist predators who produce many 3FTx, making them an interesting system for examining the coevolution of these toxins and their targets in prey animals. We used a bio-layer interferometry technique to measure the binding interaction between 15 Micrurus venoms and 12 taxon-specific mimotopes designed to resemble the orthosteric binding region of the muscular nAChR subunit. We found that Micrurus venoms vary greatly in their potency on this assay and that this variation follows phylogenetic patterns rather than previously reported patterns of venom composition. The long-tailed Micrurus tend to have greater binding to nAChR orthosteric sites than their short-tailed relatives and we conclude this is the likely ancestral state. The repeated loss of this activity may be due to the evolution of 3FTx that bind to other regions of the nAChR. We also observed variations in the potency of the venoms depending on the taxon of the target mimotope. Rather than a pattern of prey-specificity, we found that mimotopes modeled after snake nAChRs are less susceptible to Micrurus venoms and that this resistance is partly due to a characteristic tryptophan serine mutation within the orthosteric site in all snake mimotopes. This resistance may be part of a Red Queen arms race between coral snakes and their prey.

Item ID:	84120
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1432-1432
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC Grant DP190100304
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2025 04:28
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310405 Evolutionary ecology @ 50% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3101 Biochemistry and cell biology > 310110 Receptors and membrane biology @ 50%
SEO Codes:	28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100%
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