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Intra-Specific Venom Variation in the Australian Coastal Taipan <i>Oxyuranus scutellatus</i>
oleh: Theo Tasoulis, Anjana Silva, Punnam Chander Veerati, Mark Baker, Wayne C. Hodgson, Nathan Dunstan, Geoffrey K. Isbister
Format: | Article |
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Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2020-07-01 |
Deskripsi
Intra-specific venom variation has the potential to provide important insights into the evolution of snake venom, but remains a relatively neglected aspect of snake venom studies. We investigated the venom from 13 individual coastal taipans <i>Oxyuranus scutellatus</i> from four localities on the north-east coast of Australia, spanning a distance of 2000 km. The intra-specific variation in taipan venom was considerably less than the inter-specific variation between it and the other Australian elapids to which it was compared. The electrophoretic venom profile of <i>O. scutellatus</i> was visually different to six other genera of Australian elapids, but not to its congener inland taipan <i>O. microlepidotus.</i> There was minimal geographical variation in taipan venom, as the intra-population variation exceeded the inter-population variation for enzymatic activity, procoagulant activity, and the abundance of neurotoxins. The pre-synaptic neurotoxin (taipoxin) was more abundant than the post-synaptic neurotoxins (3FTx), with a median of 11.0% (interquartile range (IQR): 9.7% to 18.3%; range: 6.7% to 23.6%) vs. a median of 3.4% (IQR: 0.4% to 6.7%; range: 0% to 8.1%). Three taipan individuals almost completely lacked post-synaptic neurotoxins, which was not associated with geography and occurred within two populations. We found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in taipan venom. Our study provides a basis for evaluating the significance of intra-specific venom variation within a phylogenetic context by comparing it to the inter-specific and inter-generic variation. The considerable intra-population variation we observed supports the use of several unpooled individuals from each population when making inter-specific comparisons.