That is a very crazy connection…



LOL! Are you saying I missed my calling as a science fiction writer? It is quite interesting to speculate on this, however. I do not know a great deal about venom evolution, but I believe a fundamental driving force behind venom / venom toxin evolution is the ongoing competition between predator and prey. Snakes must recruit and evolve toxins to subdue varied and changing targets. An analogy can be drawn, in this respect, with the immune system in that it must evolve to deal with varied and changing pathogens. Components of the immune system that must change rapidly (on an evolutionary time scale) to keep up with the never-ending parade of nasties that invade our bodies daily, include the immunoglobulin gene family (antibodies, T & B cell receptors, etc.) Antibodies react in a very specific way with a very specific target, meaning they are effective against only that target. If we hold to the paradigm that one gene results in one protein product (antibody), the number of genes required to produce the required repertoire of antibodies would exceed the capacity of an organism's genome (doesn’t contain enough genes!). To solve this problem, the immune system has devised ways to introduce structural diversity in antibodies (and thereby increase target diversity) beyond gene duplication. I was just wondering if anyone has looked into the possibility of these types of mechanisms playing a role in venom toxin diversity. It seems to me that it might be advantageous to a venomous snake to have structural diversity in its toxins in an a priori fashion. Any thoughts, anyone?



Cheers,

WK

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