Comparing morphological and secretory aspects of cephalic glands among the New World coral snakes brings novel insights on their biological roles.

Autor: Oliveira L; Laboratório de Toxinologia Aplicada, Centre of Toxins, Immune-Response and Cell Signaling (CeTICS), Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil; Herpetology, The Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom. Electronic address: leooliveira.herpeto@gmail.com., Nachtigall PG; Laboratório de Toxinologia Aplicada, Centre of Toxins, Immune-Response and Cell Signaling (CeTICS), Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil., Vialla VL; Laboratório de Toxinologia Aplicada, Centre of Toxins, Immune-Response and Cell Signaling (CeTICS), Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil., Campos PF; Laboratório de Toxinologia Aplicada, Centre of Toxins, Immune-Response and Cell Signaling (CeTICS), Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil., Costa-Neves AD; Laboratório de Genética, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil., Zaher H; Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Avenida Nazaré 481, Ipiranga, 04263-000, São Paulo, Brazil., Silva NJD Jr; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais e Saúde, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás, Goiânia, Goiás, 74605-140, Brazil., Grazziotin FG; Laboratório de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil., Wilkinson M; Herpetology, The Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom., Junqueira-de-Azevedo ILM; Laboratório de Toxinologia Aplicada, Centre of Toxins, Immune-Response and Cell Signaling (CeTICS), Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, 05503-900, Brazil.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Toxicon : official journal of the International Society on Toxinology [Toxicon] 2023 Oct; Vol. 234, pp. 107285. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Sep 07.
DOI: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2023.107285
Abstrakt: Oral and other cephalic glands have been surveyed by several studies with distinct purposes. Despite the wide diversity and medical relevance of the New World coral snakes, studies focusing on understanding the biological roles of the glands within this group are still scarce. Specifically, the venom glands of some coral snakes were previously investigated but all other cephalic glands remain uncharacterized. In this sense, performing morphological and molecular analysis of these glands may help better understand their biological role. Here, we studied the morphology of the venom, infralabial, rictal, and harderian glands of thirteen species of Micrurus and Micruroides euryxanthus. We also performed a molecular characterization of these glands from selected species of Micrurus using transcriptomic and proteomic approaches. We described substantial morphological variation in the cephalic glands of New World coral snakes and structural evidence for protein-secreting cells in the inferior rictal glands. Our molecular analysis revealed that the venom glands, as expected, are majorly devoted to toxin production, however, the infralabial and inferior rictal glands also expressed some toxin genes at low to medium levels, despite the marked morphological differences. On the other hand, the harderian glands were dominated by the expression of lipocalins, but do not produce toxins. Our integrative analysis, including the prediction of biological processes and pathways, helped decipher some important traits of cephalic glands and better understand their biology.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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