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...

In the rocks: An integrative assessment of Scorpiops Peters, 1861 (Scorpiones: Scorpiopidae) in peninsular India with a description of a new species

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In the rocks: An integrative assessment of Scorpiops Peters, 1861 (Scorpiones: Scorpiopidae) in peninsular India with a description of a new species

Abstract

The genus Scorpiops Peters, 1861 exhibits significant diversity, especially in Peninsular India. From our continued arachnological surveys in the Western Ghats and Peninsular India, we describe a new species based on molecular and morphological data. Furthermore, additional sampling revealed new species with distinct molecular signatures, but future investigation is warranted to gather additional data before species are formally described.
Deshpande, S., Joshi, M., Ukale, S., Bastawade, D., Tang, V., Gowande, G., Monod, L., & Sulakhe, S. (2025). In the rocks: An integrative assessment of Scorpiops Peters, 1861 (Scorpiones: Scorpiopidae) in peninsular India with a description of a new species. Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japb.2025.02.004