Molecular Genetics of Ecological Diversification: Duplication and Rapid Evolution of Toxin Genes of the Venomous Gastropod Conus

Predatory snails in the marine gastropod genus Conus stun prey by injecting a complex mixture of peptide neurotoxins. These conotoxins are associated with trophic diversification and block a diverse array of ion channels and neuronal receptors in prey species, but the evolutionary genesis of this fu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 1999-06, Vol.96 (12), p.6820-6823
Main Authors: Duda, Thomas F., Palumbi, Stephen R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino Acid Sequence
Amino acids
Animals
Biological Sciences
Biological taxonomies
Codons
conotoxins
Conus
Conus abbreviatus
Divergent evolution
Ecological genetics
Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Gene Duplication
Genes
Genetic loci
Marine ecology
Molecular Sequence Data
Molecules
Mollusca
Mollusk Venoms - genetics
Mollusks
Proteins
Sequence Analysis
Three prime untranslated regions
Toxins
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Summary:Predatory snails in the marine gastropod genus Conus stun prey by injecting a complex mixture of peptide neurotoxins. These conotoxins are associated with trophic diversification and block a diverse array of ion channels and neuronal receptors in prey species, but the evolutionary genesis of this functional diversity is unknown. Here we show that contoxins with little amino acid similarity are in fact products of recently diverged loci that are rapidly evolving by strong positive selection in the vermivorous cone, Conus abbreviatus, and that the rate of conotoxin evolution is higher than that of most other known proteins. Gene duplication and diversifying selection result in the formation of functionally variable conotoxins that are linked to ecological diversification and evolutionary success of this genus.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.96.12.6820