Enlightening the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes

Josephine Dresler; Volker Herzig; Andreas Vilcinskas; Tim Lüddecke

doi:10.1038/s44185-024-00058-2

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Enlightening the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Enlightening the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes

Josephine Dresler, Volker Herzig, Andreas Vilcinskas and Tim Lüddecke

npj Biodiversity, Vol.3, pp.1-14

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00058-2

PMCID: PMC11399385

PMID: 39271930

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Abstract

animal physiology

chemical ecology

enzymes

Spiders produce highly adapted venoms featuring a complex mixture of biomolecules used mainly for hunting and defense. The most prominent components are peptidic neurotoxins, a major focus of research and drug development, whereas venom enzymes have been largely neglected. Nevertheless, investigation of venom enzymes not only reveals insights into their biological functions, but also provides templates for future industrial applications. Here we compared spider venom enzymes validated at protein level contained in the VenomZone database and from all publicly available proteo-transcriptomic spider venom datasets. We assigned reported enzymes to cellular processes and known venom functions, including toxicity, prey pre-digestion, venom preservation, venom component activation, and spreading factors. Our study unveiled extensive discrepancy between public databases and publications with regard to enzyme coverage, which impedes the development of novel spider venom enzyme-based applications. Uncovering the previously unrecognized abundance and diversity of venom enzymes will open new avenues for spider venom biodiscovery.

Details

Title: Enlightening the toxinological dark matter of spider venom enzymes
Authors: Josephine Dresler (Corresponding Author) - Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology
Volker Herzig (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Bioinnovation
Andreas Vilcinskas (Author) - LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics
Tim Lüddecke (Corresponding Author) - Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology
Publication details: npj Biodiversity, Vol.3, pp.1-14
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Date published: 2024
DOI: 10.1038/s44185-024-00058-2
ISSN: 2731-4243
PMID: 39271930; PMC11399385
Copyright note: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Centre for Bioinnovation
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991062896302621
Output Type: Journal article

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