Lopes Celine S S, Iwama Rafael E, Cortez Thainá, Andrade Sónia C S, Klompen Anna M L, Audino Jorge A, Macrander Jason, Reitzel Adam M, Nagata Renato M, Lanna Emilio, Martinez Lucas D, Chagas Barbara M, Stampar Sérgio N
Laboratório de Evolução e Diversidade Aquática - LEDA Lab/FC, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Av. Eng. Luiz Edmundo Carrijo Coube, 14-01 - Vargem Limpa, Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil.
Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Rua Prof. Dr. Antônio Celso Wagner Zanin, 250 - Distrito de Rubião Junior, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil.
Toxicon X. 2025 Jun 4;27:100227. doi: 10.1016/j.toxcx.2025.100227. eCollection 2025 Sep.
Ceriantharians synthesize and inoculate the toxins found in their stinging cells spread throughout the body. For most cnidarians the putative toxins profile can vary widely depending on the tissue function and the environmental conditions faced by these marine invertebrates. Extensive gene duplications events have impacted the diversity of the toxins system of cnidarians and could explain the rapid emergence of novel toxins. On the other hand, it seems for Ceriantharia, the putative toxins profile does not exhibit major variation, despite occupying different ecological niches. Some species of ceriantharians have a planktonic stage that is highly dispersive, while the benthic phase is characterized by semi-sessile polyp. However, the polyp builds a tube involving the entire column that can play an additional function by protecting against predators and competitors, which could decrease the need to synthesize a wide array of toxins. In the present study, we compare the putative toxins of the larva and polyp of based on the functional annotations of the transcriptomes against annotated protein databases. We seek to understand the evolutionary process of two toxin-like protein families using phylogenetic reconstruction methods with target sequences of the transcriptome of nine ceriantharian species. Our exploration revealed that the larva expresses 70 more toxin-like genes than the polyp, which may relate to abiotic and biotic factors the larva experiences. Our phylogenetic analyses suggest duplication events may have occurred in both toxins-like proteins and the two copies of -like proteins might have been present in the common ancestor of Ceriantharia.
海葵合成并接种分布于全身刺细胞中的毒素。对于大多数刺胞动物来说，假定的毒素谱可能因这些海洋无脊椎动物的组织功能和所面临的环境条件而有很大差异。广泛的基因复制事件影响了刺胞动物毒素系统的多样性，这可能解释了新毒素的快速出现。另一方面，对于海葵目来说，尽管占据不同的生态位，但假定的毒素谱似乎没有表现出主要变化。一些海葵物种有一个高度分散的浮游阶段，而底栖阶段的特征是半固着的水螅体。然而，水螅体构建了一个覆盖整个柱体的管子，它可以通过抵御捕食者和竞争者发挥额外功能，这可能会减少合成多种毒素的需求。在本研究中，我们根据转录组针对注释蛋白质数据库的功能注释，比较了[具体物种]幼虫和水螅体的假定毒素。我们试图使用系统发育重建方法，以九种海葵目物种转录组的目标序列来了解两个毒素样蛋白家族的进化过程。我们的探索表明，幼虫表达的毒素样基因比水螅体多70个，这可能与幼虫所经历的非生物和生物因素有关。我们的系统发育分析表明，两种毒素样蛋白可能都发生了复制事件，并且两个[具体蛋白名称]样蛋白的拷贝可能存在于海葵目的共同祖先中。
