De Novo Genome Assembly Highlights the Role of Lineage-Specific Gene Duplications in the Evolution of Venom in Fea's Viper (Azemiops feae).

ABSTRACT: Despite the medical significance to humans and important ecological roles filled by vipers, few high-quality genomic resources exist for these snakes outside of a few genera of pitvipers. Here we sequence, assemble, and annotate the genome of Fea's Viper (Azemiops feae). This taxon is distributed in East Asia and belongs to a monotypic subfamily, sister to the pitvipers. The newly sequenced genome resulted in a 1.56 Gb assembly, a contig N50 of 1.59 Mb, with 97.6% of the genome assembly in contigs >50 Kb, and a BUSCO completeness of 92.4%. We found that A. feae venom is primarily composed of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) proteins expressed by genes that likely arose from lineage-specific PLA2 gene duplications. Additionally, we show that renin, an enzyme associated with blood pressure regulation

SUBMITTER: Myers EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9256536 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature