Coevolution with toxic prey produces functional trade-offs in sodium channels of predatory snakes.

ABSTRACT: Seemingly unrelated traits often share the same underlying molecular mechanisms, potentially generating a pleiotropic relationship whereby selection shaping one trait can simultaneously compromise another. While such functional trade-offs are expected to influence evolutionary outcomes, their actual relevance in nature is masked by obscure links between genotype, phenotype, and fitness. Here, we describe functional trade-offs that likely govern a key adaptation and coevolutionary dynamics in a predator-prey system. Several garter snake (Thamnophis spp.) populations have evolved resistance to tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent chemical defense in their prey, toxic newts (Taricha spp.). Snakes achieve TTX resistance through mutations occurring at toxin-binding sites in the pore of sn

SUBMITTER: Del Carlo RE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10723449 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature