Scorpion venom is highly investigated, both because of the medical important of this animal group, but also because the different scorpion venom types are candidates of pharmaceutically active molecules with potential drug applications.
The most popular method today to study scorpion venoms is transcriptome studies. The current method for obtaining a scorpion venom gland transcriptome is based on sacrificing the animal to extract the venom gland from the telson (they cut of the telson). This means a lot of dead scorpions each year in the name of science.
Freek J. Vonk and several co-workers have now published an article describing a new method of generating a scorpion venom gland transcriptome without sacrificing the animal. This is good news as it will spare many scorpion lives, but also opens up new possibilities for testing the venom from the same scorpion several times (e.g. by allowing the study of the transcriptome at various time points within a single individual).
Abstract:
Scorpion venoms are mixtures of proteins, peptides and small molecular compounds with high specificity for ion channels and are therefore considered to be promising candidates in the venoms-to-drugs pipeline. Transcriptomes are important tools for studying the composition and expression of scorpion venom. Unfortunately, studying the venom gland transcriptome traditionally requires sacrificing the animal and therefore is always a single snapshot in time. This paper describes a new way of generating a scorpion venom gland transcriptome without sacrificing the animal, thereby allowing the study of the transcriptome at various time points within a single individual. By comparing these venom-derived transcriptomes to the traditional whole-telson transcriptomes we show that the relative expression levels of the major toxin classes are similar. We further performed a multi-day extraction using our proposed method to show the possibility of doing a multiple time point transcriptome analysis. This allows for the study of patterns of toxin gene activation over time a single individual, and allows assessment of the effects of diet, season and other factors that are known or likely to influence intraindividual venom composition. We discuss the gland characteristics that may allow this method to be successful in scorpions and provide a review of other venomous taxa to which this method may potentially be successfully applied.
References:
Vonk FJ, Bittenbinder MA, Kerkkamp HMI, Grashof DGB, Archer JP, Afonso S, et al. A non-lethal method for studying scorpion venom gland transcriptomes, with a review of potentially suitable taxa to which it can be applied. PLoS One. 2021;16(11):e0258712. [Open Access]
Thanks to Arie van der Meijden for sending me their interesting article!
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