They discovered that snake venom and mammalian saliva have a common origin

Posted:

December 25, 2021 06:34 GMT

Researchers suggest that salivary kallikrein proteins in mammals, including humans, also have the potential to become toxic.

Organotoxins are a mixture of toxic proteins used to kill or immobilize prey. A team of scientists has now found that a class of toxins found in snake venom, as well as in mammalian saliva, evolved from the same ancestral gene.

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan) and the Australian National University analyzed the class of toxins found in the venoms of most snakes, as well as other reptiles and mammals, some of which are also capable of producing venom.

For this, the team focused on studying kallikrein, a serine protease-type toxin, tracing its origins until the discovery of a gene found in a common ancestor of all, according to a statement in EurekAlert.

At some point, these groups of animals followed different evolutionary paths. Snakes have evolved to produce more venomous compounds, but most mammals have not.

“This is really strong evidence for our hypothesis that the toxin arose from a common set of genes in one of the ancestors that have toxic potential,” said Agneesh Barua of the Okinawa Institute.

The discovery described in a journal publication BMC Biology It also indicates that salivary kallikrein proteins in mammals, including humans, also have the potential to become toxic.

“The fact that we have the basic ingredients to develop the venom does not mean that this will happen. The venom is very expensive from an energy point of view, so there must be a strong environmental pressure [para que se genere]which humans and most mammals do not have.”