ArticleGenome biology and evolution2014
Restriction and recruitment-gene duplication and the origin and evolution of snake venom toxins.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 163 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inter- and Intraspecific Venom Variation in the Reclusive Rear-Fanged Black-Striped Snakes (Toxins · 2026Article
- Transcriptomic Insights Into the Evolution of Snake Venom: Mechanisms, Diversity, and Adaptation.Scientifica · 2026Review
- Molecular mechanisms underlying early functional divergence in snake venom inferred from the genomes of two pitviper lineages.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Genome of venomous caterpillarProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Molecular Mechanisms of Venom Diversity.Toxins · 2025Review
- Unveiling the Evolutionary History of European Vipers and Their Venoms From a Multi-Omic Approach.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Gene and Genome Duplication in Spiders.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2025Review
- Venomics of the Arabian saw-scaled viper (Echis coloratus) through transcriptome-guided proteomics and in vitro functional profiling.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Localized Tissue-Specific Gene Expression and Gene Duplications are Important Sources of Social Morph Differences in a Social Bumblebee.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Review
- Revisiting the reaction pathways for phospholipid hydrolysis catalyzed by phospholipase A2 with QM/MM methods.Chemical science · 2024Article
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- The genome of the ant Tetramorium bicarinatum reveals a tandem organization of venom peptides genes allowing the prediction of their regulatory and evolutionary profiles.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Proteomics and life-history variability of Endogenous Phospholipases A2 Inhibitors (PLIs) in Bothrops jararaca plasma.PloS one · 2024Article
- Collaborative Expression: Transcriptomics of Conus virgo Suggests Contribution of Multiple Secretory Glands to Venom Production.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Review
- Whole Genome Duplication and Gene Evolution in the Hyperdiverse Venomous Gastropods.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
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- Genomic, functional and structural analyses elucidate evolutionary innovation within the sea anemone 8 toxin family.BMC biology · 2023Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Snake venom has been hypothesized to have originated and diversified through a process that involves duplication of genes encoding body proteins with subsequent recruitment of the copy to the venom gland, where natural selection acts to develop or increase toxicity. However, gene duplication is known to be a rare event in vertebrate genomes, and the recruitment of duplicated genes to a novel expression domain (neofunctionalization) is an even rarer process that requires the evolution of novel combinations of transcription factor binding sites in upstream regulatory regions. Therefore, although this hypothesis concerning the evolution of snake venom is very unlikely and should be regarded with caution, it is nonetheless often assumed to be established fact, hindering research into the true origins of snake venom toxins. To critically evaluate this hypothesis, we have generated transcriptomic data for body tissues and salivary and venom glands from five species of venomous and nonvenomous reptiles. Our comparative transcriptomic analysis of these data reveals that snake venom does not evolve through the hypothesized process of duplication and recruitment of genes encoding body proteins. Indeed, our results show that many proposed venom toxins are in fact expressed in a wide variety of body tissues, including the salivary gland of nonvenomous reptiles and that these genes have therefore been restricted to the venom gland following duplication, not recruited. Thus, snake venom evolves through the duplication and subfunctionalization of genes encoding existing salivary proteins. These results highlight the danger of the elegant and intuitive "just-so story" in evolutionary biology.
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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.