Intra-Specific Venom Variation in the Australian Coastal Taipan Oxyuranus scutellatus
| Autor: | Theo Tasoulis, Geoffrey K. Isbister, Mark Baker, Punnam Chander Veerati, Nathan Dunstan, Wayne C. Hodgson, Anjana Silva |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Male
intra-specific variation Health Toxicology and Mutagenesis Population Neurotoxins Zoology lcsh:Medicine Venom Context (language use) Biology In Vitro Techniques Toxicology L-Amino Acid Oxidase complex mixtures Article chemistry.chemical_compound Oxyuranus scutellatus Species Specificity Animals Humans Elapidae taipan education Muscle Skeletal Blood Coagulation snake venom Elapid Venoms education.field_of_study Evolution of snake venom Taipoxin lcsh:R Australia biology.organism_classification Taipan Rats Phospholipases A2 chemistry Snake venom Female Chickens Muscle Contraction |
| Zdroj: | Toxins, Vol 12, Iss 485, p 485 (2020) Toxins Volume 12 Issue 8 |
| ISSN: | 2072-6651 |
| Popis: | Intra-specific venom variation has the potential to provide important insights into the evolution of snake venom, but remains a relatively neglected aspect of snake venom studies. We investigated the venom from 13 individual coastal taipans Oxyuranus scutellatus from four localities on the north-east coast of Australia, spanning a distance of 2000km. The intra-specific variation in taipan venom was considerably less than the inter-specific variation between it and the other Australian elapids to which it was compared. The electrophoretic venom profile of O. scutellatus was visually different to six other genera of Australian elapids, but not to its congener inland taipan O. microlepidotus. There was minimal geographical variation in taipan venom, as the intra-population variation exceeded the inter-population variation for enzymatic activity, procoagulant activity, and the abundance of neurotoxins. The pre-synaptic neurotoxin (taipoxin) was more abundant than the post-synaptic neurotoxins (3FTx), with a median of 11.0% (interquartile range (IQR): 9.7% to 18.3% range: 6.7% to 23.6%) vs. a median of 3.4% (IQR: 0.4% to 6.7% range: 0% to 8.1%). Three taipan individuals almost completely lacked post-synaptic neurotoxins, which was not associated with geography and occurred within two populations. We found no evidence of sexual dimorphism in taipan venom. Our study provides a basis for evaluating the significance of intra-specific venom variation within a phylogenetic context by comparing it to the inter-specific and inter-generic variation. The considerable intra-population variation we observed supports the use of several unpooled individuals from each population when making inter-specific comparisons. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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