PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Venoms are complex chemical arsenals that have evolved independently many times in the animal kingdom. Venoms have attracted the interest of researchers because they are an important innovation that has contributed greatly to the evolutionary success of many animals, and their medical relevance offers significant potential for drug discovery. During the last decade, venom research has been revolutionized by the application of systems biology, giving rise to a novel field known as venomics. More recently, biotechnology has also made an increasing impact in this field. Its methods provide the means to disentangle and study venom systems across all levels of biological organization and, given their tremendous impact on the life sciences, these pivotal tools greatly facilitate the coherent understanding of venom system organization, development, biochemistry, and therapeutic activity. Even so, we lack a comprehensive overview of major advances achieved by applying biotechnology to venom systems. This review therefore considers the methods, insights, and potential future developments of biotechnological applications in the field of venom research. We follow the levels of biological organization and structure, starting with the methods used to study the genomic blueprint and genetic machinery of venoms, followed gene products and their functional phenotypes. We argue that biotechnology can answer some of the most urgent questions in venom research, particularly when multiple approaches are combined together, and with other venomics technologies.
摘要：
毒液是复杂的化学武器库，在动物界已经独立进化了很多次。毒液吸引了研究人员的兴趣，因为它们是一项重要的创新，为许多动物的进化成功做出了巨大贡献。它们的医学相关性为药物发现提供了巨大的潜力。在过去的十年里，毒液研究因系统生物学的应用而发生了革命性的变化，产生了一个被称为venomics的新领域。最近,生物技术在这一领域也产生了越来越大的影响。它的方法提供了在所有生物组织层面上解开和研究毒液系统的手段，鉴于它们对生命科学的巨大影响，这些关键工具极大地促进了对毒液系统组织的连贯理解，发展,生物化学,和治疗活动。即便如此,我们缺乏对将生物技术应用于毒液系统所取得的重大进展的全面概述。因此，这篇综述考虑了这些方法，见解,以及毒液研究领域生物技术应用的潜在未来发展。我们遵循生物组织和结构的水平，从研究毒液基因组蓝图和遗传机制的方法开始，跟踪基因产物及其功能表型。我们认为生物技术可以回答毒液研究中一些最紧迫的问题，特别是当多种方法结合在一起时，以及其他venomics技术。
