Variability of sodium channel toxins in Mesobuthus thersites Advised toolkit for comprehensive venomics

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Variability of sodium channel toxins in Mesobuthus thersites Advised toolkit for comprehensive venomics Abstract Natural venoms constitute vast combinatorial libraries of ion channel ligands with unprecedented properties including high affinity and selectivity. Scorpion venoms in particular are abundant in sodium and potassium channel ligands representing small proteins or peptides, which are traditionally studied by transcriptomics and proteomics approaches. However, a universal algorithm to pursue the examination of multicomponent peptide-rich mixtures such as venoms is lacking. Here we present a general scheme to the analysis of scorpion toxin arsenal with focus on sodium channel ligands. We explored the venom of the Central Asian scorpion Mesobuthus thersites using venom gland transcriptomics and three proteomic methods. We compared traditional automated annotation by Blast2GO with our custom approach based on regular expressions. We found that the traditional annotation is compro...

More on the black-palp wolf spider Pardosa crassipalpis Purcell, 1903 in South Africa (Araneae: Lycosidae)

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More on the black-palp wolf spider Pardosa crassipalpis Purcell, 1903 in South Africa (Araneae: Lycosidae) 

Abstract

The black-palp wolf spider Pardosa crassipalpis Purcell, 1903 has a wide distribution in Southern Africa and is known from Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. The species is commonly found in agroecosystems and is recognised as one of five agrobiont species in South Africa. The general morphology of the species is discussed, with photographs of live specimens and notes on their behaviour, biology, distribution, and conservation status in South Africa. 

Dippenaar-Schoeman, A. S. & Webb, P. (2023f). More on the black-palp wolf spider Pardosa crassipalpis Purcell, 1903 in South Africa (Araneae: Lycosidae). Sansa Newsletter 47: 21-23. doi:10.5281/zenodo.8421664