There is an ancient link between our saliva and our snake venom

Humans and other mammals have the same genetic basis for the development of oral venom as snakes, according to article published today in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This connection was discovered by a research team examining venom-producing tissue from 30 habus, an East Asian viper. Researchers were scrutinizing the genes of animals to understand who had contributed to the expression of the complex proteins that make up snake venom.

The toxins in snake venom evolve rapidly, and it is difficult to understand how the ancient toxins may differ from those sequestered in the glands of animals today. Instead of looking for these earlier states, the researchers – Agneesh Barua and Alexander S. Mikheyev of the Japan Institute of Science and Technology in Okinawa – instead looked at the genes that help make toxins. It’s almost like not being able to hear an old piece of music, but rather understand how other music derives from it based on common rules of its tempo, time signature, and key.

After learning how genes express toxin-bound proteins, the next step was to make correlations between genes (which genes were most or least often associated). The researchers found that the genes in the venom were the ones that worked to maintain protein structure and cultivate a biological environment that made it possible to produce a lot of protein.

“This makes perfect sense, because the venom is a protein cocktail of toxins,” Barua said in an email. “It is essential that the protein structure of these toxins is maintained. Otherwise, on Friom will not work, and the animal could not catch its prey.”

“This suggests that there is a common molecular framework between venom glands in snakes and salivary tissue in non-venomous mammals,” Letters said, adding that the shared attribute represents an ancient genetic makeup inherited by both groups of modern animals.

Some mammals have venom; both living types of monotreme have glands to inject toxins, although only platypuses are functional. Shrews and slow lorises can also trigger a toxic bite – the latter involves combining saliva with sweat gland secretions. Overall, although the reptilian world has beaten the life of mammals, producing a diverse array of species with a different venom repertoires. TThe salivary glands of mice, dogs and humans genetically look like those from our distance, sliding corins on the tree of life. It is not yet clear why snakes have become such experts on toxicity., while mammals have just tried the useful trait.

“It is likely that the ancestor of poisonous snakes had a particular advantage in the development of oral secretions, the kind of advantage that ancestors of shrews or mice did not have,” said Barua. “One would imagine that the conditions for the non-venomous ancestors of snakes were ‘perfect’ for developing venom.”

It is theoretically possible that the salivary glands of non-venomous mammals, such as those of humans or mice, may finally become so. (But it’s hard to imagine what adaptive is but venom could serve us, what about the global supply chain and all.)

For now, at least, the research is a reminder that complex life on this planet has very ancient common roots, and even reptiles and mammals are genetically attached. Our similarities will always be deeper than the skin (or tartar).