@article{40c79f4d95d24df0814e87613395aac6,
title = "Prevalent bee venom genes evolved before the aculeate stinger and eusociality",
abstract = "Background: Venoms, which have evolved numerous times in animals, are ideal models of convergent trait evolution. However, detailed genomic studies of toxin-encoding genes exist for only a few animal groups. The hyper-diverse hymenopteran insects are the most speciose venomous clade, but investigation of the origin of their venom genes has been largely neglected. Results: Utilizing a combination of genomic and proteo-transcriptomic data, we investigated the origin of 11 toxin genes in 29 published and 3 new hymenopteran genomes and compiled an up-to-date list of prevalent bee venom proteins. Observed patterns indicate that bee venom genes predominantly originate through single gene co-option with gene duplication contributing to subsequent diversification. Conclusions: Most Hymenoptera venom genes are shared by all members of the clade and only melittin and the new venom protein family anthophilin1 appear unique to the bee lineage. Most venom proteins thus predate the mega-radiation of hymenopterans and the evolution of the aculeate stinger.",
keywords = "Aculeatoxins, Apamin, Bee toxins, Genomics, Hymenoptera venom, Machine learning, Melittin, Proteo-transcriptomics, Solitary bee venom, Venom gene evolution",
author = "Ivan Koludarov and Mariana Velasque and Tobias Senoner and Thomas Timm and Carola Greve and Hamadou, \{Alexander Ben\} and Gupta, \{Deepak Kumar\} and G{\"u}nter Lochnit and Michael Heinzinger and Andreas Vilcinskas and Rosalyn Gloag and Harpur, \{Brock A.\} and Lars Podsiadlowski and Burkhard Rost and Jackson, \{Timothy N.W.\} and Sebastien Dutertre and Eckart Stolle and \{von Reumont\}, \{Bj{\"o}rn M.\}",
note = "Funding Information: BMvR and IK thank the German Science Foundation (DFG) for funding this work by a grant to BMvR (DFG RE3454/6–1). BMvR and AV acknowledge generous funding obtained by AV from the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and the Arts for the group “Animal Venomics”, which was coordinated by BMvR until end of 2021 at the Institute for Insectbiotechnology at the Justus Liebig University, embedded in the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics. Funding Information: BMvR and IK thank Frank F{\"o}rster for fruitful discussions on bioinformatics. BMvR is grateful to Georg Petschenka and Hermann Falkenhahn for helpful insights and discussion on solitary bees and localities in Giessen. BMvR thanks further Ingo Ebersberger for his support. We thank the Genome Technology Center (RGTC) at Radboudumc for the use of the Sequencing Core Facility (Nijmegen, The Netherlands), which provided the PacBio SMRT sequencing service on the Sequel IIe platform. We finally are grateful to anonymous reviewers from previous manuscript versions for helpful comments. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023, BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.",
year = "2023",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1186/s12915-023-01656-5",
language = "English",
volume = "21",
journal = "BMC Biology",
issn = "1741-7007",
publisher = "BioMed Central",
number = "1",
}