Adaptive evolution in the snake venom Kunitz/BPTI protein family

FEBS Letters

Gubenšek, Franc¹  Kordiš, Dušan¹  Župunski, Vera¹ 

[1] Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

关键词: Kunitz/BPTI homolog;    Snake venom;    Multigene family;    Adaptive evolution;    BPTI;    bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor;    PLA2;    phospholipase A2;    Ti;    trypsin inhibitor;    Chi;    chymotrypsin inhibitor;    Dtx;    dendrotoxin;    Btx;    bungarotoxin;    Tx;    textilinin;   

DOI  :  10.1016/S0014-5793(03)00693-8

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

Snake venoms are rich sources of serine proteinase inhibitors that are members of the Kunitz/BPTI (bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor) family. However, only a few of their gene sequences have been determined from snakes. We therefore cloned the cDNAs for the trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors from a Vipera ammodytes venom gland cDNA library. Phylogenetic analysis of these and other snake Kunitz/BPTI homologs shows the presence of three clusters, where sequences cluster by functional role. Analysis of the nucleotide sequences from the snake Kunitz/BPTI family shows that positive Darwinian selection was operating on the highly conserved BPTI fold, indicating that this family evolved by gene duplication and rapid diversification.

【 授权许可】

Unknown