Venomics Insights into the Evolutionary Biology of Peptide Toxins in Marine and Terrestrial Organisms
A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Venoms".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2025 | Viewed by 19
Special Issue Editors
2. Dept. of Biochemistry and Biophysiscs, Institute of Health Sciences, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40110-100, BA, Brazil
Interests: transcriptome of arthropods, cnidarians and other venomous animals; peptide engineering; anti-proliferative peptides; membranolytic peptides; regulatory peptides; molecular biology; pharmaceutical biotechnology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: arthropods; marine organism; antimicrobial peptide; neurotoxic peptide; protease inhibitor; transcriptome analysis; protein engineering
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Prominent poisonous and venomous animal classes that inhabit numerous ecological niches today, like invertebrates (e.g., marine cnidarians and terrestrial arthropods) and vertebrates (marine fishes and terrestrial reptiles), originated over a million years ago (mya) and continuously evolved after that. During biological and molecular evolution, genes coding for toxins and their expression products were selected to achieve high specificity and potency for their cellular targets. Each species' chemical and biological arsenal brings advantages in ecological warfare for defense, predation, and dispute for territory. Indeed, biological diversity can be understood and translated into combinatorial chemical and pharmacological possibilities. Modern venomics has advanced so well in technological aspects that the tiniest and hidden organisms can be assessed for their toxin contents and repertoires. The combination of "omics" sciences (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc.), computational biology, and essential pharmacological assays, such as in vitro 2-D, 3-D, and organoid cell systems, electrophysiology (e.g., voltage and patch-clamp recording), and in vivo insect (e.g., cricket), mouse, and zebrafish models, allow for and make possible the discovery of toxin structures, scaffolds, activities, and functionalities that have contributed to translating the basic research on toxins into different fields of applied sciences—from pest control (e.g., ion-channel blocker bioinsecticides) to diagnosing and treating chronic and degenerative diseases (peptide probes and antidiabetic, immunomodulator, and painkiller drugs). The present Special Issue aims to collect and make available to readers articles on the disclosure and description of toxin composition and frameworks in marine and terrestrial organisms using modern venomics analysis. In addition, venomics studies that bring new insights on peptide toxin evolution will be available to the scientific and interested community.
Prof. Dr. Gandhi Rádis-Baptista
Dr. Hidetoshi Inagaki
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- venomics
- venom transcriptomics
- venom pharmacomics
- animal toxin
- cnidarian toxins
- arthropod toxins
- toxin evolution
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