CONCO

Work Package Leader: Frédéric DUCANCEL (CEA)

Participants: University of Frankfurt, CEA, J. Craig Venter Institute, Skuld-Tech,
Jozef Stefan Institute

The Genomic and Transcriptomic Programs

The transcriptomic program will allow a complete description of all precursors produced by the venom-gland cells, provide the nucleic acid templates required for large scale production of venom compounds and also give access to some post-transcriptional events such as RNA-editing. Transcriptomics will start with the building a normalised cDNA library using mARN from the venom gland cells. Then, about 5,000 Expressed Sequenced Tags (ESTs) will be sequenced providing a panorama of the transcriptional biodiversity of the venom gland cells.

The genomic program led by the prestigious J. Craig Venter Institute will make possible the complete characterisation of the genome of a venomous marine animal. This will allow us to progress in our understanding of the venomous machinery and its remarkable capacity to produce a huge diversity of tailored peptides and proteins. Moreover, this will provide us the unique possibility to identify in other tissues the genes encoding endogenous compounds, some of which may prove clinically useful.

All these data will serve molecular evolution and phylogenetic studies as well as evolutionary genomics investigations . The data obtained will then be matched against those issued from the peptidomic and proteomic approaches.

This workpackage will be supervised by Dr Frédéric Ducancel who was involved in the first cloning of a venom component and who has a long-term expertise in toxinology and genetic studies.