Abstract

, there was a lack of binding to the orthosteric site of any target lineage. Subsequent testing on the in vitro chick-biventer cervicis muscle preparation suggested that, while the venoms of these species bound postsynaptically, they bound to allosteric sites rather than orthosteric. Allosteric binding is potentially a weaker but faster-acting form of neurotoxicity and we hypothesise that the switch to allosteric binding is likely due to selection pressures related to prey-escape potential. This research has potentially opened up the possibility of a new functional class of toxins which have never been assessed previously while shedding light on the selection pressures shaping venom evolution.

Authors	Harris, Richard J; Youngman, Nicholas J; Zdenek, Christina N; Huynh, Tam M; Nouwens, Amanda; Hodgson, Wayne C; Harrich, David; Dunstan, Nathan; Portes-Junior, José A; Fry, Bryan G
Journal	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
Pages
Volume	21
Date	1/10/2020
Grant ID
Funding Body	University of Queensland international and domestic PhD scholarship fund
URL	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=10.3390/ijms21197377