Snake Vulnerability Testing Reveals Common Snake Vengefulness Genetics
Snake venom contains toxins that are lethal to its prey. These toxins are injected into the body by special fangs through a wound or other openings. Normally, the venom is injected directly into the animal which serves as a warning to other dangerous threats that may be lurking behind. Although many types of snakes do not pose any serious threat, when an endangered species is affected, swift action needs to be taken to save the species. A bite caused by snake venom can lead to death within 24 hours.
There are two types of snake venom: venom injected into the body and venom that is taken from the dead snake. The latter contains antivenin and is used to treat snake bites. The former is not effective against non-venomous snakes but can be helpful when it comes to dealing with venomous ones. Snake venoms vary in length and can cause symptoms like weakness, nausea and vomiting, difficulty in breathing and swelling of the injected area. The most common types of snake venom are: copper poison, coral snake venom, rattlesnake venom, coral snake neurotoxin, sugar snake venom and cobra snake venom. Most of these come in powdery form and should be ingested without further delay after venom is ingested.
It is important to know the composition of venom as varying species may produce a wide variety of venom composition. Generally, however, the composition of a venom varies according to the type of snakebite victim and the extent of the damage to the body. The composition may also differ according to the time and place of venom composition.
One snake species, the Black Rat snake, is the only venomous species in Australia. It is also one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. It is considered the most poisonous snake in the world because its bite causes death within three to five minutes. Its neurotoxic venom causes quick nerve cell death in part by damaging the nerve cells around the site of the bite. Because of this rapid death, there is little or no permanent damage to the muscles, nerves or internal organs.
Snakes can also secrete a poisonous fluid that is a combination of enzymes and amino acids. This toxin has a strong effect on the body, but only on the reaction of the body’s organs and not on the tissues and cells outside the snakes body. In order to make sure that a full and adequate dosage of antivenom is given to all possible snakebite victims, the poison has to be administered carefully.
One of the important developments in recent years is the development of a technique that allows us to examine the activity of the venom gland transcriptome in snake species. When this transcriptome is compared to the corresponding region in non-venomous snakes, it will allow us to determine the exact locations of the transcripts. This method has helped to show that there is a common regional transcriptional mechanism, which can explain why all snakes carry the gene. The finding of the venom proteomes was a remarkable advance in molecular biology that has helped us to realize that snakes share a common ancestry. If we look closely, it is not really all that surprising to discover that all of the large constrictor species are also broadly representative of the cobra family.
Variation in Snake Toxins Many people have noticed that the venom proteins they have isolated from the snakes differ significantly from the ones they have studied elsewhere. The researchers found that although there is some general similarity, when they examined the snake protein with the venom paralogs from all known species, the amino acid composition and length of the transcripts were consistently different. The researchers believe that this can be explained by the fact that the variation observed is due to a recent ancestral event, and is therefore very recently found, as compared to other known genes. In addition to the previously mentioned biological phenomenon of paralogy, this study also provides strong evidence that a large proportion of venom proteins may be conserved, and are thus likely to have originated through gene flow between geographically isolated populations. It is very unlikely that venomous snakes would have left their gene pool if they retained the same venom protein throughout their lifespan.
The conclusions that are drawn about the genetics of snake bites seem to imply that there are numerous previously undiscovered genetic variations, and that these variants are actually unique to snake species. If we look at the core genetic loci of all modern-day C. elegans, for example, the composition of their coding regions is surprisingly similar, despite the highly diversified nature of C. elegans. If there are many other undiscovered genetic variations, they are yet to be discovered. The study also suggests that there are no significant differences between the composition of non-venomous and venomous snakes, and therefore that they all retain the same basic genotype.
