Gabriel Marques de Barros

The marine environment is a rich source of new biotechnologies and products. Bottom trawling for shrimp species such as Xiphopenaeus kroyeri and Farfantepenaeus brasiliensis leads to the unintentional capture of non-target species, known as bycatch, which includes a variety of marine life that are often discarded without economic value. A common bycatch species on the southeast coast of Brazil is Olivancillaria urceus (O. urceus), a carnivorous gastropod that feeds mainly on bivalves. Despite its abundance, this species is still little studied, especially for biotechnological applications. Other gastropods such as Conus are known for their diverse and potent toxins, which offer great potential for pharmacological discoveries. In this study, an omics approach, including transcriptomics and proteopeptidomics, was applied to explore O. urceus at the molecular level. The transcriptome of the muscle foot/mantle led to the annotation of 19,097 genes via Gene Ontology, identifying 20 toxin-like transcripts identified considering the Gastropod class. The proteome fraction confirmed 2179 transcripts, including sequences with toxin activity, such as conotoxin precursors, Conodipine-P3, and BPTI/Kunitz domain-containing proteins. In addition, 9663 peptides of 1484 precursor proteins were detected in the peptide fraction, including 2 sequences representing neurotoxins. The identification of these sequences could lead to the discovery of new molecules with therapeutic potential.

Sea anemones are sessile invertebrates of the phylum Cnidaria and their survival and evolutive success are highly related to the ability to produce and quickly inoculate venom, with the presence of potent toxins. In this study, a multi-omics approach was applied to characterize the protein composition of the tentacles and mucus of Bunodosoma caissarum, a species of sea anemone from the Brazilian coast. The tentacles transcriptome resulted in 23,444 annotated genes, of which 1% showed similarity with toxins or proteins related to toxin activity. In the proteome analysis, 430 polypeptides were consistently identified: 316 of them were more abundant in the tentacles while 114 were enriched in the mucus. Tentacle proteins were mostly enzymes, followed by DNA- and RNA-associated proteins, while in the mucus most proteins were toxins. In addition, peptidomics allowed the identification of large and small fragments of mature toxins, neuropeptides, and intracellular peptides. In conclusion, integrated omics identified previously unknown or uncharacterized genes in addition to 23 toxin-like proteins of therapeutic potential, improving the understanding of tentacle and mucus composition of sea anemones.

The seahorse is a marine teleost fish member of the Syngnathidae family that displays a complex variety of morphological and reproductive behavior innovations and has been recognized for its medicinal importance. In the Brazilian ichthyofauna, the seahorse Hippocampus reidi is among the three fish species most used by the population in traditional medicine. In this study, a protocol was performed based on fast heat inactivation of proteases plus liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to identify native peptides in gills of seahorse H. reidi. The MS/MS spectra obtained from gills allowed the identification of 1080 peptides, of which 1013 peptides were present in all samples and 67 peptide sequences were identified in an additional LC-MS/MS run from an alkylated and reduced pool of samples. The majority of peptides were fragments of the internal region of the amino acid sequence of the precursor proteins (67%), and N- and C-terminal represented 18% and 15%, respectively. Many peptide sequences presented ribosomal proteins, histones and hemoglobin as precursor proteins. In addition, peptide fragments from moronecidin-like protein, described with antimicrobial activity, were found in all gill samples of H. reidi. The identified sequences may reveal new bioactive peptides.