Abstract
Little is known about venom in young developmental stages of animals. The appearance of toxins and stinging cells during early embryonic stages in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis suggests that venom is already expressed in eggs and larvae of this species. Here, we harness transcriptomic, biochemical and transgenic tools to study venom production dynamics in Nematostella. We find that venom composition and arsenal of toxin- producing cells change dramatically between developmental stages of this species. These findings can be explained by the vastly different interspecific interactions of each life stage, as individuals develop from a miniature non-feeding mobile planula to a larger sessile polyp that predates on other animals and interact differently with predators. Indeed, behavioral assays involving prey, predators and Nematostella are consistent with this hypothesis. Further, the results of this work suggest a much wider and dynamic venom landscape than initially appreciated in animals with a complex life cycle.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e35014 |
| Journal | eLife |
| Volume | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 9 Feb 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to Dr David Fredman (Department of Informatics, University of Bergen) for his invaluable help with quantitative and computational methods. We are also grateful to Dr Mario Leb-endiker, Dr Tsafi Danieli and Yael Keren (Protein Expression and Purification Facilities of the Hebrew University) for their help with recombinant expression and chromatography and for the help of Dr Dana Reichmann and Dr Bill Breuer (Department of Biological Chemistry of the Hebrew University) for their help with mass spectrometry. We also thank Amy Klock and Matthew Kustra (Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Carolina, Charlotte) for their assistance with shrimp injections for the organismal assays. KS was supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (654294). This work was supported by Israel Science Foundation grant no. 691/14 to YM, NSF award 1536530 to AMR, and Binational Science Foundation grant no. 2013119 to YM and AMR.
Funding Information:
We are grateful to Dr David Fredman (Department of Informatics, University of Bergen) for his invaluable help with quantitative and computational methods. We are also grateful to Dr Mario Lebendiker, Dr Tsafi Danieli and Yael Keren (Protein Expression and Purification Facilities of the Hebrew University) for their help with recombinant expression and chromatography and for the help of Dr Dana Reichmann and Dr Bill Breuer (Department of Biological Chemistry of the Hebrew University) for their help with mass spectrometry. We also thank Amy Klock and Matthew Kustra (Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Carolina, Charlotte) for their assistance with shrimp injec- tions for the organismal assays. KS was supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (654294). This work was supported by Israel Science Foundation grant no. 691/14 to YM, NSF award 1536530 to AMR, and Binational Science Foundation grant no. 2013119 to YM and AMR. Israel Science Foundation Grant no. 691/14 Yehu Moran, H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship 654294 Kartik Sunagar Yehu Moran, National Science Foundation Award 1536530 Adam M Reitzel, United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant no. 2013119 Adam M Reitzel Yehu Moran. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Funding Information:
National Science Foundation
Publisher Copyright:
© Columbus-Shenkar et al.