Fletcher, Jess

Malhotra, Anita

Wüster, Wolfgang

English

Predators exploiting chemically defended prey are generally resistant to prey toxins. However, toxin resistance usually incurs a fitness cost and is therefore often lost when no longer needed. Bufonid toads are a frequently abundant food resource, but chemically defended by a group of cardiotonic steroids, bufadienolides. Bufophagous predators have evolved a specific and near-universal mechanism of resistance to these toxins, consisting of two amino acid substitutions in the Na+/K+-ATPase H1–H2 extracellular domain. The dynamics of loss or retention of this adaptation in secondarily non-bufophagous lineages remain inadequately understood. Here we explore thistopic by showing that the piscivorous banded water cobra Naja annulata retains the bufadienolide-resistant genotype of the otherwise toad-eating cobra clade. This confirms a trend for secondarily non-toad-eating snakes to retain bufadienolide resistance

Bangor University Research Portal

You are what your ancestors ate: retained bufadienolide resistance in the piscivorous water cobra Naja annulata (Serpentes: Elapidae)

https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/60713980/Naja_ATPase_MS_accepted.pdf

You are what your ancestors ate: retained bufadienolide resistance in the piscivorous water cobra Naja annulata (Serpentes: Elapidae)

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Bangor University Research Portal