ArticleGenome biology and evolution2016
Effects of Gene Duplication, Positive Selection, and Shifts in Gene Expression on the Evolution of the Venom Gland Transcriptome in Widow Spiders.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Molecular mechanisms underlying early functional divergence in snake venom inferred from the genomes of two pitviper lineages.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Molecular Mechanisms of Venom Diversity.Toxins · 2025Review
- Gene and Genome Duplication in Spiders.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2025Review
- Whole Genome Duplication and Gene Evolution in the Hyperdiverse Venomous Gastropods.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Micro and macroevolution of sea anemone venom phenotype.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Divergent Specialization of Simple Venom Gene Profiles among Rear-Fanged Snake Genera (Toxins · 2022Article
- Venom Gene Sequence Diversity and Expression Jointly Shape Diet Adaptation in Pitvipers.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Terrestrial venomous animals, the envenomings they cause, and treatment perspectives in the Middle East and North Africa.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Review
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- Article
- Widow spiders in the New World: a review onThe journal of venomous animals and toxins including tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Australian funnel-web spiders evolved human-lethal δ-hexatoxins for defense against vertebrate predators.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Ovarian Transcriptomic Analyses in the Urban Human Health Pest, the Western Black Widow Spider.Genes · 2020Article
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- Alternative Transcription at Venom Genes and Its Role as a Complementary Mechanism for the Generation of Venom Complexity in the Common House Spider.Frontiers in ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Homeobox Gene Duplication and Divergence in Arachnids.Molecular biology and evolution · 2018Article
- Evaluating the Performance of De Novo Assembly Methods for Venom-Gland Transcriptomics.Toxins · 2018Article
- Article
- Identification of a precursor processing protease from the spiderThe Journal of biological chemistry · 2018Article
- Recent progress and prospects for advancing arachnid genomics.Current opinion in insect science · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Gene duplication and positive selection can be important determinants of the evolution of venom, a protein-rich secretion used in prey capture and defense. In a typical model of venom evolution, gene duplicates switch to venom gland expression and change function under the action of positive selection, which together with further duplication produces large gene families encoding diverse toxins. Although these processes have been demonstrated for individual toxin families, high-throughput multitissue sequencing of closely related venomous species can provide insights into evolutionary dynamics at the scale of the entire venom gland transcriptome. By assembling and analyzing multitissue transcriptomes from the Western black widow spider and two closely related species with distinct venom toxicity phenotypes, we do not find that gene duplication and duplicate retention is greater in gene families with venom gland biased expression in comparison with broadly expressed families. Positive selection has acted on some venom toxin families, but does not appear to be in excess for families with venom gland biased expression. Moreover, we find 309 distinct gene families that have single transcripts with venom gland biased expression, suggesting that the switching of genes to venom gland expression in numerous unrelated gene families has been a dominant mode of evolution. We also find ample variation in protein sequences of venom gland-specific transcripts, lineage-specific family sizes, and ortholog expression among species. This variation might contribute to the variable venom toxicity of these species.
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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.