Title

Authors

Affiliation

¹Division of Biological Sciences, Department of Pharmacy, Gupta College of Technological Sciences, Ashram More, G.T. Road, Asansol-713301, West Bengal, India; ²Department of Zoology, The University of Burdwan, Golapbag, Burdwan -713104, West Bengal, India.

Email

goutamchandra63@yahoo.co.in; *Corresponding author

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received February 10, 2013; Accepted February 12, 2013; Published March 02, 2013

Snakes are equipped with their venomic armory to tackle different prey and predators in adverse natural world. The venomic composition of snakes is a mix of biologically active proteins and polypeptides. Among different components snake venom cytotoxins and short neurotoxin are non-enzymatic polypeptide candidates with in the venom. These two components structurally resembled to three-finger protein superfamily specific scaffold. Different non-toxin family members of three-finger protein superfamily are involved in different biological roles. In the present study we analyzed the snake venom cytotoxins, short neurotoxins and related non-toxin proteins of different chordates in terms of amino acid sequence level diversification profile, polarity profile of amino acid sequences, conserved pattern of amino acids and phylogenetic relationship of these toxin and non-toxin protein sequences. Sequence alignment analysis demonstrates the polarity specific molecular enrichment strategy for better system adaptivity. Occurrence of amino acid substitution is high in number in toxin sequences. In non-toxin body proteins there are less amino acid substitutions. With the help of conserved residues these proteins maintain the three-finger protein scaffold. Due to system specific adaptation toxin and non-toxin proteins exhibit a varied type of amino acid residue distribution in sequence stretch. Understanding of Natural invention scheme (recruitment of venom proteins from normal body proteins) may help us to develop futuristic engineered bio-molecules with remedial properties.

Keywords

Snake venom cytotoxin, Short neurotoxins, Non-toxin proteins of chordates, Amino acid, Sequence level diversification, Polarity profile, Phylogenetic study, Evolutionary process.

Citation

Panda & Chandra, Bioinformation 9(5): 259-266 (2013)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.