RT journal article
T1 The genome of the venomous snail Lautoconus ventricosus shed light on the origin of conotoxin diversity
A1 Pardos-Blas, José R.
A1 Irisarri, Iker
A1 Abalde, Samuel
A1 Afonso, CarlosM.L
A1 Jiménez Tenorio, Manuel
A1 Zardoya, Rafael
A2 Ciencia de los Materiales e Ingeniería Metalúrgica y Química Inorgánica
K1 Mediterranean cone snail
K1 Lautoconus ventricosus
K1 chromosome-level genome
K1 venom gland transcriptome
K1 conotoxin precursor genes
K1 whole-genome duplication
AB Background: Venoms are deadly weapons to subdue prey or deter predators that have evolved independently in many animal lineages. The genomes of venomous animals are essential to understand the evolutionary mechanisms involved in the origin and diversification of venoms. Results: Here, we report the chromosome-level genome of the venomous Mediterranean cone snail, Lautoconus ventricosus (Caenogastropoda: Conidae). The total size of the assembly is 3.59 Gb; it has high contiguity (N50 = 93.53 Mb) and 86.6 Mb of the genome assembled into the 35 largest scaffolds or pseudochromosomes. On the basis of venom gland transcriptomes, we annotated 262 complete genes encoding conotoxin precursors, hormones, and other venom-related proteins. These genes were scattered in the different pseudochromosomes and located within repetitive regions. The genes encoding conotoxin precursors were normally structured into 3 exons, which did not necessarily coincide with the 3 structural domains of the corresponding proteins. Additionally, we found evidence in the L. ventricosus genome for a past whole-genome duplication event by means of conserved gene synteny with the Pomacea canaliculata genome, the only one available at the chromosome level within Caenogastropoda. The whole-genome duplication event was further confirmed by the presence of a duplicated hox gene cluster. Key genes for gastropod biology including those encoding proteins related to development, shell formation, and sex were located in the genome. Conclusions: The new high-quality L. ventricosus genome should become a reference for assembling and analyzing new gastropod genomes and will contribute to future evolutionary genomic studies among venomous animals.
PB OXFORD UNIV PRESS
SN 2047-217X
YR 2021
FD 2021-05
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/25350
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/25350
LA eng
NO This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CGL2016-75255-C2-1-P [AEI/FEDER, UE] and PID2019-103947GB-C22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 to R.Z.; BES-2017-081195 to J.R.P.-B.; BES-2014-069575 to S.A.; IJCI-2016-29566 to I.I.). I.I. acknowledges the support from the European Research Council during the latest stages of the project (Grant Agreement No. 852725; ERC-StG "TerreStriAL" to Jan de Vries, University of Goettingen).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 15-nov-2026