{"doi":"10.3390/toxins6041260","title":"Tracing Monotreme Venom Evolution in the Genomics Era","abstract":"<jats:p>The monotremes (platypuses and echidnas) represent one of only four extant venomous mammalian lineages. Until recently, monotreme venom was poorly understood. However, the availability of the platypus genome and increasingly sophisticated genomic tools has allowed us to characterize platypus toxins, and provides a means of reconstructing the evolutionary history of monotreme venom. Here we review the physiology of platypus and echidna crural (venom) systems as well as pharmacological and genomic studies of monotreme toxins. Further, we synthesize current ideas about the evolution of the venom system, which in the platypus is likely to have been retained from a venomous ancestor, whilst being lost in the echidnas. We also outline several research directions and outstanding questions that would be productive to address in future research. An improved characterization of mammalian venoms will not only yield new toxins with potential therapeutic uses, but will also aid in our understanding of the way that this unusual trait evolves.</jats:p>","journal":"Toxins","year":2014,"id":679660,"datarank":0.4566783656585135,"base_score":3.044522437723423,"endowment":3.044522437723423,"self_citation_contribution":0.4566783656585135,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.4566783656585135,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":94850,"name":"Katherine Belov","orcid":"0000-0002-9762-5554","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1775810,"name":"Camilla Whittington","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Tracing Monotreme Venom Evolution in the Genomics Era","abstract":"<jats:p>The monotremes (platypuses and echidnas) represent one of only four extant venomous mammalian lineages. Until recently, monotreme venom was poorly understood. However, the availability of the platypus genome and increasingly sophisticated genomic tools has allowed us to characterize platypus toxins, and provides a means of reconstructing the evolutionary history of monotreme venom. Here we review the physiology of platypus and echidna crural (venom) systems as well as pharmacological and genomic studies of monotreme toxins. Further, we synthesize current ideas about the evolution of the venom system, which in the platypus is likely to have been retained from a venomous ancestor, whilst being lost in the echidnas. We also outline several research directions and outstanding questions that would be productive to address in future research. An improved characterization of mammalian venoms will not only yield new toxins with potential therapeutic uses, but will also aid in our understanding of the way that this unusual trait evolves.</jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":3.044522437723423,"endowment":3.044522437723423,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"24699339","pmcid":"PMC4014732","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2102478396","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Australian Research Council (ARC)","grant_id":"DP120100649","title":"The link between the angiogenesis of live birth and cancer: a lizard model"}],"total_grants":1,"fwci":0.6397,"citation_percentile":0.73650704,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2015,"count":2},{"year":2017,"count":1},{"year":2019,"count":5},{"year":2021,"count":3},{"year":2023,"count":2},{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":4},{"year":2026,"count":1}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/6/4/1260/pdf?version=1396446490","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/6/4/1260/pdf?version=1396446490","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/6/4/1260/pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins6041260","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24699339","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4014732","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/4014732","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/50cd2a27ea7545cca6d3eb65b3701cd6","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins6041260","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4014732","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4014732?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins6041260","host_type":""}],"fields_of_study":["Venomous Animal Envenomation and Studies","Ion channel regulation and function","Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology","0301 basic medicine","0303 health sciences","03 medical and health sciences","Animals","Evolution, Molecular","Genomics","Phylogeny","Platypus","Species Specificity","Tachyglossidae","Venoms"],"mesh_terms":["Animals","Tachyglossidae","Phylogeny","Platypus","Species Specificity","Venoms","Evolution, Molecular","Genomics"],"keywords":["Platypus","Monotreme","Biology","Venom","Evolutionary biology","Extant taxon","Genomics","Zoology","Genome","Genetics","Systematics","Gene","Ecology","Taxonomy (biology)","Venoms","Tachyglossidae","R","Review","echidna","Evolution, Molecular","transcriptomics","Species Specificity","Medicine","Animals","toxin","Phylogeny","crural system"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":3,"sdg_label":"3. Good health"},{"sdg_number":13,"sdg_label":"13. Climate action"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-17T13:34:27.774421Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}