Käärmemyrkyn evoluutio

Maanantain Prismassa esiteltiin käärmemyrkkyjen metsästäjä ja huippuasiantuntija Dr Bryan Fry.
Hän vihjasi evoluutiosta.

Netistä löytyi tämmöistä häneltä:

"Venom evolution

You were awarded the 2011 Fenner Medal from the Australian Academy of Science for research in biology, specifically for advances in our understanding of venom protein evolution. How did venom evolve? What did you find?

Venom doesn’t come out of thin air. There isn’t a little intelligent design fairy that comes by and goes ‘Poof, have another venom molecule.’ The building blocks come from the body somehow. A perfect example or, two good examples are from tiger snakes. Their venom does absolutely devastating things to the blood chemistry. Their venom has a mutated form of a blood coagulation enzyme called factor 10. It has been mutated so that it is 1,000-fold more active and 100-fold more resistant to being broken down by the normal regulatory enzymes. It is a good example of a massive overdose. In fact it is no different than if we just kept infusing you with massive amounts of normal human recombinant factor 10. You would have the same clinical pathology as you would from a tiger snake bite, which ultimately can involve bleeding in the brain and other fun and exciting things like that. But it shows the very simple way that venoms evolve from other things.

Another way for the venoms to evolve is to make a molecule that gives you an underdose. With things like a death adder, their venom is chockers full of a modified neuropeptide, so instead of turning something off, it just sits there and blocks the receptor. Therefore none of our normal acetylcholine can get through and none of the messages can get through. You lose all control of the muscles and death is from respiratory arrest. If you can’t move the diaphragm, you can’t inflate the lungs. If you can’t inflate the lungs, you don’t get any air. If you don’t get any air, you are not going to live very long. So the tiger snake and the death adder are good examples of the two basic ways that venom evolution happens – an overdose scenario or an underdose scenario"

http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/f/fry.html#mythbuster

Selostaa tuossa evoluutiota eli 1 tapa on jossa esim. mutaatioiden ym kautta hyytymistekijä 10:stä kehittyy käärmeelle tehokas myrkky. 2. tapa on neuropeptidin muunnos, joka blokkaa hermosolun.

Tämäntapainen evolutiivinen tieto on auttamassa lääketiedettä, ihmishenkien pelastamisessa jne.