Evolution: poisonous frog self-protection (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 21, 2017, 20:51 (2619 days ago) @ David Turell

Tiny Ecuadorian frogs produce very potent neurotoxins. Obviously they must be protected from themselves:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170921141238.htm

" Thimble-sized, dappled in cheerful colors and squishy, poison frogs in fact harbor some of the most potent neurotoxins we know. With a new paper published in the journal Science, scientists are a step closer to resolving a related head-scratcher -- how do these frogs keep from poisoning themselves?

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"The researchers discovered that a small genetic mutation in the frogs -- a change in just three of the 2,500 amino acids that make up the receptor -- prevents the toxin from acting on the frogs' own receptors, making them resistant to its lethal effects. Not only that, but precisely the same change appeared independently three times in the evolution of these frogs.

"'Being toxic can be good for your survival -- it gives you an edge over predators," said Rebecca Tarvin, a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin and a co-first author on the paper. "So why aren't more animals toxic? Our work is showing that a big constraint is whether organisms can evolve resistance to their own toxins. We found evolution has hit upon this same exact change in three different groups of frogs, and that, to me, is quite beautiful."

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"A receptor is a type of protein on the outside of cells that transmits signals between the outside and the inside. Receptors are like locks that stay shut until they encounter the correct key. When a molecule with just the right shape comes along, the receptor gets activated and sends a signal.

"The receptor that Tarvin and her colleagues studied sends signals in processes like learning and memory, but usually only when a compound that is the healthy "key" comes into contact with it. Unfortunately for the frogs' predators, toxic epibatidine also works, like a powerful skeleton key, on the receptor, hijacking cells and triggering a dangerous burst of activity.

"The researchers found that poison frogs that use epibatidine have developed a small genetic mutation that prevents the toxin from binding to their receptors. In a sense, they've blocked the skeleton key. They also have managed, through evolution, to retain a way for the real key to continue to work, thanks to a second genetic mutation. In the frogs, the lock became more selective.

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"This represents the second time that Cannatella, Zakon, Tarvin and Santos have played a role in discovering mechanisms that prevent frogs from poisoning themselves. In January 2016, the team identified a set of genetic mutations that they suggested might protect another subgroup of poison frogs from a different neurotoxin, batrachotoxin."

Comment: this is another example of two things that have to appear at the same time. The poison and the protective system have to appear together, because if the frog secretes the poison without protection, there will be no future frogs. This must be designed Just as insect eating plants must have a protection against their digestive enzymes simultaneously developed. Not by chance.