Abstract
Dolomedes sulfurous and Dolomedes mizhoanus are predaceous arthropods catching and feeding on small fish. They live in the same area and have similar habits. Their venoms exhibit some similarities and differences in biochemical and electrophysiological properties. In the present work, we first performed a transcriptomic analysis by constructing the venom gland cDNA library of D. sulfurous and 127 novel putative toxin sequences were consequently identified, which were classified into eight families. This venom gland transcriptome was then compared with that of D. mizhoanus, which revealed that the putative toxins from both spider venoms might have originated from the same gene ancestors although novel toxins were evolved independently in the two spiders. The putative toxins from both spiders contain 6–12 cysteine residues forming seven cysteine patterns. As revealed by blast search, the two venoms are rich in neurotoxins targeting ion channels with pharmacological and therapeutic significance. This study provides insight into the venoms of two closely related species of spider, which will be of use for future investigations into the structure and function of their toxins.
Highlights
The spiders known to catch and feed on small fish and insects are large, semiaquatic spiders [1, 2]
The directional full-length cDNA library was generated from the venom glands of D. sulfurous
Spider venoms are comprised of diverse neurotoxins, which are considered as powerful tools for the research of ion channels and have potential applications as novel pharmaceutical drugs [24,25,26,27]
Summary
The spiders known to catch and feed on small fish and insects are large, semiaquatic spiders (fishing spiders) [1, 2]. The genus Dolomedes are the most dominant group of fishing spiders, which are predators with a leg span of 6–9 cm and a weight of 0.5–2 g [3]. There are more than 90 species in Dolomedes. The venoms from the two spiders have been investigated in our previous researches [4, 5]. They contain hundreds of peptides with different molecular weight distribution as revealed by off-line RP-HPLC/MALDI-TOF-MS analysis; they potentially inhibit voltage-activated Na+, K+, and Ca2+ channels in rat dorsal root ganglion neurons; and the intrathoracic injection of the two venoms at high concentrations caused severe neurotoxic
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