<i>De Novo</i> Assembly of Venom Gland Transcriptome of <i>Tropidolaemus wagleri</i> (Temple Pit Viper, Malaysia) and Insights into the Origin of Its Major Toxin, Waglerin

oleh: Choo Hock Tan, Kae Yi Tan, Nget Hong Tan

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2023-09-01

Deskripsi

The venom proteome of Temple Pit Viper (<i>Tropidolaemus wagleri</i>) is unique among pit vipers, characterized by a high abundance of a neurotoxic peptide, waglerin. To further explore the genetic diversity of its toxins, the present study <i>de novo</i> assembled the venom gland transcriptome of <i>T. wagleri</i> from west Malaysia. Among the 15 toxin gene families discovered, gene annotation and expression analysis reveal the dominating trend of bradykinin-potentiating peptide/angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor-C-type natriuretic peptide (BPP/ACEI-CNP, 76.19% of all-toxin transcription) in the transcriptome, followed by P-III snake venom metalloproteases (13.91%) and other toxins. The transcript TwBNP01 of BPP/ACEI-CNP represents a large precursor gene (209 amino acid residues) containing the coding region for waglerin (24 residues). TwBNP01 shows substantial sequence variations from the corresponding genes of its sister species, <i>Tropidolaemus subannulatus</i> of northern Philippines, and other viperid species which diversely code for proline-rich small peptides such as bradykinin-potentiating peptides (BPPs). The waglerin/waglerin-like peptides, BPPs and azemiopsin are proline-rich, evolving <i>de novo</i> from multiple highly diverged propeptide regions within the orthologous BPP/ACEI-CNP genes. Neofunctionalization of the peptides results in phylogenetic constraints consistent with a phenotypic dichotomy, where <i>Tropidolaemus</i> spp. and <i>Azemiops feae</i> convergently evolve a neurotoxic trait while vasoactive BPPs evolve only in other species.