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Small-molecule mimicry hunting strategy in the imperial cone snail, Conus imperialis. 2021
Joshua P Torres, and
Zhenjian Lin, and
Maren Watkins, and
Paula Flórez Salcedo, and
Robert P Baskin, and
Shireen Elhabian, and
Helena Safavi-Hemami, and
Dylan Taylor, and
Jortan Tun, and
Gisela P Concepcion, and
Noel Saguil, and
Angel A Yanagihara, and
Yixin Fang, and
Jeffrey R McArthur, and
Han-Shen Tae, and
Rocio K Finol-Urdaneta, and
B Duygu Özpolat, and
Baldomero M Olivera, and
Eric W Schmidt
Department of Medicinal Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
Venomous animals hunt using bioactive peptides, but relatively little is known about venom small molecules and the resulting complex hunting behaviors. Here, we explored the specialized metabolites from the venom of the worm-hunting cone snail, Conus imperialis Using the model polychaete worm Platynereis dumerilii, we demonstrate that C. imperialis venom contains small molecules that mimic natural polychaete mating pheromones, evoking the mating phenotype in worms. The specialized metabolites from different cone snails are species-specific and structurally diverse, suggesting that the cones may adopt many different prey-hunting strategies enabled by small molecules. Predators sometimes attract prey using the prey's own pheromones, in a strategy known as aggressive mimicry. Instead, C. imperialis uses metabolically stable mimics of those pheromones, indicating that, in biological mimicry, even the molecules themselves may be disguised, providing a twist on fake news in chemical ecology.
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