ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
The king cobra genome reveals dynamic gene evolution and adaptation in the snake venom system.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 220 papers.
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Who cites it
220 citing papers in PubMed, 491 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Comparison of fang replacement rate in Viperidae snakes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Toxins in disguise: Neuropeptide mimicry across animal venoms.General and comparative endocrinology · 2026Review
- Transcriptomic Insights Into the Evolution of Snake Venom: Mechanisms, Diversity, and Adaptation.Scientifica · 2026Review
- Genome of venomous caterpillarProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Lowly Expressed Toxin Transcripts in Poorly Characterized Myanmar Russell's Viper Venom Gland.Biotech (Basel (Switzerland)) · 2025Article
- Molecular Mechanisms of Venom Diversity.Toxins · 2025Review
- Duplication of a conserved mitochondrial enzyme gene arms parasitoid wasps with venom cytotoxicity and oogenesis regulation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Orphan Three-Finger Toxins from Snake Venoms: Unexplored Library of Novel Biological Ligands with Potential New Structures and Functions.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Chromosome-level reference genome for the medically important Arabian horned viper (Cerastes gasperettii).GigaScience · 2025Article
- A Vision for VenomsBase: An Integrated Knowledgebase for the Study of Venoms and Their Applications.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- The Evolution and Role of Molecular Tools in Measuring Diversity and Genomic Selection in Livestock Populations (Traditional and Up-to-Date Insights): A Comprehensive Exploration.Veterinary sciences · 2024Review
- Article
- Where the "ruber" Meets the Road: Using the Genome of the Red Diamond Rattlesnake to Unravel the Evolutionary Processes Driving Venom Evolution.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Fish-hunting cone snail disrupts prey's glucose homeostasis with weaponized mimetics of somatostatin and insulin.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Selection Across the Three-Dimensional Structure of Venom Proteins from North American Scolopendromorph Centipedes.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Article
160 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
36 authors at 17 institutions in 9 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Snakes are limbless predators, and many species use venom to help overpower relatively large, agile prey. Snake venoms are complex protein mixtures encoded by several multilocus gene families that function synergistically to cause incapacitation. To examine venom evolution, we sequenced and interrogated the genome of a venomous snake, the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), and compared it, together with our unique transcriptome, microRNA, and proteome datasets from this species, with data from other vertebrates. In contrast to the platypus, the only other venomous vertebrate with a sequenced genome, we find that snake toxin genes evolve through several distinct co-option mechanisms and exhibit surprisingly variable levels of gene duplication and directional selection that correlate with their functional importance in prey capture. The enigmatic accessory venom gland shows a very different pattern of toxin gene expression from the main venom gland and seems to have recruited toxin-like lectin genes repeatedly for new nontoxic functions. In addition, tissue-specific microRNA analyses suggested the co-option of core genetic regulatory components of the venom secretory system from a pancreatic origin. Although the king cobra is limbless, we recovered coding sequences for all Hox genes involved in amniote limb development, with the exception of Hoxd12. Our results provide a unique view of the origin and evolution of snake venom and reveal multiple genome-level adaptive responses to natural selection in this complex biological weapon system. More generally, they provide insight into mechanisms of protein evolution under strong selection.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.