Athina Gavriilidou, University of Lausanne

Coevolution of genes involved in animal venom systems

Venom systems are among nature’s most sophisticated biological innovations, yet many aspects of their evolution and function remain poorly understood. For example, venomous species survive exposure to their own toxins either through physiological barriers or through biochemical adaptations, a topic largely unexplored in current literature. We conducted a large-scale comparative analysis of venom-related genes across the animal kingdom using phylogenetic and genomic approaches to gain insights on those unclear relationships. By comparing these profiles across species, it was possible to identify coevolving protein families, even within a large search space. Using all Metazoa currently in the OMA orthology database, we employed the HogProf phylogenetic profiling algorithm to identify protein families with high profile similarity to venom-related protein families. This approach allowed us to detect some candidate genes potentially involved in venom functions or self-resistance mechanisms.