Snake Venom Genomics and Evolution

物种是根据它们共同的进化历史来划分的，但每当对它们进行详细研究时，它们就会显示出分布范围内的差异。如果这种变化代表了对当地条件的精细适应，那么整个物种水平的适应可能会受到阻碍。该项目需要通过描述蛇毒跨物种和同一物种的进化模式来研究这个问题。蛇毒是研究适应的理想选择，因为它们在捕食和防御方面具有进化上的重要作用，并且具有对当地猎物物种专业化的潜力。将采用尖端分子技术对10种美国本土蛇的毒液进行全面表征，以研究物种水平的适应进化，并对其中3种蛇的毒液变异进行量化，以研究精细尺度的适应。这项研究将为美国本土一些最具医学意义的物种提供前所未有的蛇毒特征及其地理变异，有助于我们对适应性进化的理解。据估计，全世界每年有125,000人因蛇咬伤而死亡，这种毒液成分的详细分子特征将有助于治疗方法的发展和改进。由于蛇毒毒素的目标以及它们与参与基本生物过程和人类疾病的蛋白质的共同祖先，该项目的结果可能会强烈影响疼痛，炎症，关节炎，癌症，心脏病发作和中风的药物设计和治疗。

Species are delineated on the basis of their shared evolutionary histories, but whenever they have been examined in detail, they show variation across their ranges. If this variation represents fine-scale adaptation to local conditions, adaptation at the overall species level may be hindered. The project entails examining this issue by characterizing the evolutionary patterns in snake venoms across and within species. Snake venoms are ideal for studying adaptation because of their evolutionarily significant roles in feeding and defense and their potential for specialization for local prey species. The venoms of 10 species of snake native to the United States will be completely characterized by cutting-edge molecular techniques for study of species-level adaptive evolution, and venom variation within three of these species will be quantified for study of fine-scale adaptation.This research will provide an unprecedented characterization of snake venoms and their geographic variation for some of the most medically significant species native to the United States, contributing to our understanding of adaptive evolution. Snakebites cause an estimated 125,000 deaths per year worldwide, and the development and improvement of treatments for them will benefit from this detailed molecular characterization of venom composition. Because of the targets of snake-venom toxins and their shared ancestry with proteins involved in basic biological processes and human disease, the results of the project could strongly influence drug design and treatment for pain, inflammation, arthritis, cancer, heart attacks, and strokes.