Kordis D, Gubensek F
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Gene. 2000 Dec 30;261(1):43-52. doi: 10.1016/s0378-1119(00)00490-x.
Animal toxins comprise a diverse array of proteins that have a variety of biochemical and pharmacological functions. A large number of animal toxins are encoded by multigene families. From studies of several toxin multigene families at the gene level the picture is emerging that most have been functionally diversified by gene duplication and adaptive evolution. The number of pharmacological activities in most toxin multigene families results from their adaptive evolution. The molecular evolution of animal toxins has been analysed in some multigene families, at both the intraspecies and interspecies levels. In most toxin multigene families, the rate of non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions (dN/dS) is higher than one. Thus natural selection has acted to diversify coding sequences and consequently the toxin functions. The selection pressure for the rapid adaptive evolution of animal toxins is the need for quick immobilization of the prey in classical predator and prey interactions. Currently available evidence for adaptive evolution in animal toxin multigene families will be considered in this review.
动物毒素由多种具有不同生化和药理功能的蛋白质组成。大量动物毒素由多基因家族编码。从基因水平对几个毒素多基因家族的研究中可以看出，大多数毒素多基因家族通过基因复制和适应性进化实现了功能多样化。大多数毒素多基因家族中的药理活性数量源于它们的适应性进化。动物毒素的分子进化已在一些多基因家族中从种内和种间水平进行了分析。在大多数毒素多基因家族中，非同义替换与同义替换的比率（dN/dS）高于1。因此，自然选择促使编码序列多样化，进而使毒素功能多样化。在经典的捕食者与猎物相互作用中，动物毒素快速适应性进化的选择压力是需要迅速使猎物失去活动能力。本综述将考虑目前可获得的关于动物毒素多基因家族适应性进化的证据。
