Squeezers and leaf-cutters paper

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venomdoc
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Squeezers and leaf-cutters paper

Post by venomdoc »

After 6 years of lab work and an epic 8 month review-process war of attrition, our paper is finally out in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. :beer:

Here is the link to the in-press version
http://www.venomdoc.com/downloads/2013_ ... utters.pdf

Some high-light points:
- Doctors in Australia rely on the venom detection kit to aid in diagnosis of snake bite. False-positives could lead to patients getting very expensive antivenom they don’t need. Potentially triggering life-threatening allergies but without the benefit of curing a snakebite, and reducing supply for patients who actually need it. This paper shows a surprising potential source of false-positives: pythons. As we’ve shown in previous studies, all snakes arose from a common ancestor that was a venomous lizard. So snakes have various degrees of ‘venomosity’, with some being extremely advanced, such as cobras or taipans, while others have lost almost all their venom, like egg-eating sea snakes or pythons. Almost all, but not all. Evolution is like a crime scene, there is always evidence to be found. A previous study showed that pythons cross-react in the Snake Venom Detection Kit (sVDK) but this curious result was dismissed as an anomaly and never thought of again. We show in this paper that even though python oral glands over-whelmingly secrete mucus to swallow their large prey, there is still a trace of venom in there. Not enough to harm a human or help kill a prey, but enough to mess up an extremely sensitive diagnostic tool like the sVDK. However, this problem also provides an opportunity, we found that the low level of ancient venom still secreted in these glands contained novel compounds that were quite different than those from their well-studied cousins like rattlesnakes or mambas. These novel molecules therefore represent an untapped resource for biodiscovery.
- Another part of this complex study examined an enigmatic type of gland associated with the venom glands called the ‘rictal glands’. These glands had only been investigated in a pair of studies almost 100 years ago. The secretions were shown to be highly toxic to the birds injected with it but then no more investigations were undertaken and the glands were forgotten in the sands of time. Until now. In this paper we showed that these glands are in fact derived from the well-studied venom glands. Meaning that the secretion of venom by snakes is much more complex than previously thought and, again, that the opportunity for biodiscovery even greater than before.
- We also investigated a number of other aspects, including showing that the trigger for the evolution of venom was the co-opting of an antimicrobial system and that vegetarian iguanid lizards still pump out these peptides.
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venomdoc
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Re: Squeezers and leaf-cutters paper

Post by venomdoc »

During this study, I lived in constant fear of the paper going to press with me missing one of the never-ending attempts of Microsloth Word to correct rictal gland to rectal gland :crazyeyes:

The only papers about rectal glands are those by He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and 'published' in the Australasian Journal of Herpetology :twisted:
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Dan Krull
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Re: Squeezers and leaf-cutters paper

Post by Dan Krull »

Excellent work as usual Dr. Fry! Fascinating stuff.

"He who shall not be named" produces almost everything from his rectal glands. :)


Dan
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