Molecular Game Theory for a Toxin-dominant Food Chain Model

author:	Bowen Li, Jonathan R Silva, Xiancui Lu, Lei Luo, Yunfei Wang, Lizhen Xu, Aerziguli Aierken, Zhanserik Shynykul, Peter Muiruri Kamau, Anna Luo, Jian Yang, Deyuan Su, Fan Yang, Jianmin Cui, Shilong Yang, Ren Lai
Abstract:	A general concept is established that animal toxins are used to subdue prey and deter predators, which act as the key drivers in natural food chains and ecosystems. However, the predators of venomous animals may exploit feeding adaptation strategies to overcome the toxin burdens placed by their prey. Much remains unknown about the genetic and molecular game process in the toxin-dominant food chain model. Here we show an evolutionary strategy in different trophic levels of scorpion-eating amphibians, scorpions, and insects, representing each predation relationship in this type of habitat, which is dominated by paralytic toxins of scorpions. For scorpion preying on insects, we found that the scorpion α-toxins irreversibly activate skeletal muscle sodium channel of their prey (insect, BgNaV1) through a membrane delivery mechanism and an efficient binding with the Asp/Lys-Tyr motif of BgNaV1. However, in the predatory game between frogs and scorpions, with a single point mutation (Lys to Glu) in this motif of frog’s skeletal muscle sodium channel (fNaV1.4), fNaV1.4 breaks this interaction and diminishes muscular toxicity to the frog, thus regularly preying on scorpions without showing paralysis. Interestingly, this molecular strategy has also been employed by some other scorpion-eating amphibians, especially anurans. In contrast to these amphibians, the Asp/Lys-Tyr motifs are structurally and functionally conserved in other animals which do not prey on scorpions. Together, our findings elucidate the protein-protein interacting mechanism of a toxin-dominant predator-prey system, implying the evolutionary game theory at molecular level
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PubYear:	2019
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Unit code:	152453
Publication name:	National Science Review
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Paper source:	https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwz097/5536076?searchresult=1#
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