On the trail of the first venomous crustacean: venom gland transcriptome profiling of Remipedia (Crustacea)

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Venomous animals are ubiquitous in aquatic and terrestrial habitats across the world. The widespread convergent evolution of venoms in the animal kingdom is testament to their importance as key ecological adaptations. Venomics - the scientific study of venoms - is still in its relative infancy because comprehensive venom composition profiles have been generated primarily for a narrow range of species. A more complete understanding of fundamental issues about the biology and evolution of venoms and venomous organisms requires a broader perspective. The most obvious avenue for progress is the investigation of taxa that are suspected to be venomous, especially if they are distantly related to other venomous species.In this respect remipede crustaceans are an extraordinarily promising group, as Crustacea is the only major traditional arthropod group without known venomous species. Recent studies show that Remipedia are the possible sistergroup to Hexapoda supporting Pancrustacea instead of the traditional Atelocerata (= Tracheata) concept.The specific questions and general approach in this project are: 1. What putative toxin families are expressed in the suspected venom glands of remipedes?2. How does remipede venom composition compare with that of other venomous arthropods and non-arthropods?These questions will be addressed with next generation sequencing technology to generate the first crustacean venom gland profile. The resulting dataset will provide a unique resource for analyses in comparative venomics.