Venom Evolution Part 2

Hello again. Welcome back to Evolution of venom. Today blog topic, we will be covering venom evolution part 2. A recap from the last blog: Two theories about venom evolution were covered, positive Darwinian selection and macro evolutionary diversification (biosynthesis and sequestration).

 
Today’s theory about venom evolution is gene duplication. Gene duplication is where a part of the DNA is duplicated and mutates without leaving any harmful consequences to the animal and may increase the fitness of the animal (Fatima, E. 2013). Some of the DNA duplicates may be retained by natural selection or genetic drift while the rest of the duplicates are lost to mutations (Wong and Belov, 2012).

 

Many of the venom toxins may have evolve by ‘birth & death process’ cause by gene evolution and gene duplication, where a gene with a normal ‘physiological’ body protein is duplicate and the duplicate gene is expressed in the venom gland or other venomous tissue (Casewell et al. 2013). Over time venom has evolved in a few animal lineages from invertebrates and vertebrates with the exception of birds (Casewell, N. 2017).

In next week’s blog, we will be covering some of the invertebrates that can use venom. Below are four journal articles if anyone want to read more about gene duplication.

 

References

Casewell, N. 2017, "Evolution: Gene Co-option Underpins Venom Protein Evolution", CURRENT BIOLOGY, vol. 27, no. 13, pp. R647-R649.
 
Casewell, N.R., Wüster, W., Vonk, F.J., Harrison, R.A. & Fry, B.G. 2013, "Complex cocktails: The evolutionary novelty of venoms", Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 219-229

 

Fatima, E. 2013, "Venom evolution: Genetic and external factors", Resonance, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 287-288

 

Wong, E.S.W. & Belov, K. 2012, "Venom evolution through gene duplications", Gene, vol. 496, no. 1, pp. 1-7.