Rivera-de-Torre Esperanza, Martínez-Del-Pozo Álvaro, Garb Jessica E
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA; Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de CC. Químicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de CC. Químicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
Toxicon. 2018 Aug;150:105-114. doi: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2018.05.014. Epub 2018 May 19.
Transcriptomic profiling of venom producing tissues from different animals is an effective approach for discovering new toxins useful in biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications, as well in evolutionary comparative studies of venomous animals. Stichodactyla helianthus is a Caribbean sea anemone which produces actinoporins as part of its toxic venom. This family of pore forming toxins is multigenic and at least two different isoforms, encoded by separate genes, are produced by S. helianthus. These isoforms, sticholysins I and II, share 93% amino acid identity but differ in their pore forming activity and act synergistically. This observation suggests that other actinoporin isoforms, if present in the venomous mixture, could offer an advantageous strategy to modulate whole venom activity. Using high-throughput sequencing we generated a de novo transcriptome of S. helianthus and determined the relative expression of assembled transcripts using RNA-Seq to better characterize components of this species' venom, focusing on actinoporin diversity. Applying this approach, we have discovered at least one new actinoporin variant from S. helianthus in addition to several other putative venom components.
对来自不同动物的毒液产生组织进行转录组分析，是发现可用于生物技术和制药应用的新毒素的有效方法，在有毒动物的进化比较研究中也是如此。太阳海葵是一种加勒比海海葵，其产生的放线孔蛋白是其有毒毒液的一部分。这个形成孔道的毒素家族是多基因的，太阳海葵产生至少两种由不同基因编码的不同亚型。这些亚型，即刺参溶细胞素I和II，氨基酸序列一致性为93%，但它们的成孔活性不同，且具有协同作用。这一观察结果表明，如果毒液混合物中存在其他放线孔蛋白亚型，可能会提供一种调节整个毒液活性的有利策略。我们使用高通量测序技术构建了太阳海葵的从头转录组，并通过RNA测序确定了组装转录本的相对表达，以更好地表征该物种毒液的成分，重点是放线孔蛋白的多样性。应用这种方法，我们除了发现其他几种假定的毒液成分外，还从太阳海葵中发现了至少一种新的放线孔蛋白变体。
