attack of insect

Hi Florence,
I think the species-target of the toxin is probably out the scope of GO, but do you have a paper or some more information about where the specificity comes from, for these requests? Do the toxins enter cells of other species, but have evolved only have an effect in insects, for example?
thanks
Becky

Hi Becky,

sorry for the delay.
Here are several reviews that shows specificity of spider or scorpion venom proteins.
Usually, the toxin targets a channel in the other species. Depending on the toxin, the toxin only targets insect, mammalian channels, or both.

Insect-selective:
PMID:18849658 = Peptide toxins that selectively target insect Na(V) and Ca(V) channels.
Spiders:
PMID:17210168 = Insecticidal toxins from black widow spider venom.
Scorpions:
PMID:17215013 = The differential preference of scorpion alpha-toxins for insect or mammalian sodium channels: implications for improved insect control.
PMID:17953978 = Southern African scorpion toxins: an overview.

I hope this helps,
Cheers,
Florence

I've got a few of these I'll address together, see:

http://wiki.geneontology.org/index.php/Non-symbiotic_multi-organism_processes

What I think we could do here is make a child term of:

behavioral defense response to insect ; GO:0002211
A behavioral response seeking to protect an organism from an a perceived external threat from an insect or insects to that organism.

something like:

behavioral defense response to insect mediated by insect-specific toxin

and the same for for mammals:

behavioral defense response to mammal mediated by mammal-specific toxin

How does that sound?

Jane

Hi Jane,

the idea of such a GO term is to tag scorpion or spider toxins that are insect-specific. Since the diet of those organisms are insects, it may be more appropriate to speak about attack instead of defense. The same is for vertebrate-specific (the diet of some venomous animals consists, among other, of small mammals).
To sting an insect, the venomous animal should first detect its presence and after it can attack. Is this attack a sort of response ? and if yes, what do you think of my first suggestion (attack of insect; GO:new) ?
Otherwise, we may try :
behavioral attack response to insect mediated by insect-specific toxin
behavioral attack response to mammal mediated by mammal-specific toxin

Florence

I see what you mean...actually I think a slight variation on your original terms might be okay (I originally misunderstood their meaning to be 'attack *by* an insect' rather than 'attack *on* an insect').

We have this term:

predatory behavior ; GO:0002120
Aggressive behavior involving attack on prey by a predator.

so how about child terms:

predatory behavior
---[i] attack on an insect
------[i] attack on an insect mediated by insect-specific toxin
---[i] attack on a mammal
------[i] attack on a mammal mediated by mammal-specific toxin

and I'll also make them children of the 'response to...' terms.

Thanks Jane. It seems we come closer to the solution.
I have a new idea for these terms, which is coherent with other toxins.

What do you think of

predatory behavior ; GO:0002120
------[i] envenomation resulting in insect paralysis or death
------[i] envenomation resulting in mammal paralysis or death

I am wondering if a intermediary parent (such as attack on an insect) is useful.
Maybe, we can create it when it is requested ?

Hi Florence - sorry, had a busy few weeks!

So I think the problem with the arrangement below is that not every instance of e.g. 'envenomation resulting in mammal paralysis or death' is necessarily a predatory behaviour, in some cases it might be defensive. I know the toxins you're working on have a predatory role, but these terms need to work for all species.

So we could either separate completely the action (i.e. envenomation resulting in blah) from the intention (i.e. predation or defense) and then you could annotate to both, or we could make the compound terms e.g. predatory envenomation resulting in insect paralysis or death.

Would the terms include actually consuming the other organism? I'm thinking not.

Hi Jane, sorry for being so late in answering

I think the best solution is to separate the action from the intention.
Since the intention of such a GO term is to indicate that the toxin is mammal or insect specific, I believe that we can replace the "paralysis or death" originally proposed by intoxication or impairment:

envenomation resulting in mammal intoxication
envenomation resulting in insect intoxication

and add them as direct children of
GO:0035738 envenomation resulting in modification of morphology or physiology of other organism

Thanks
Florence

Sorry Florence, this fell through the cracks due to a malfunctioning of the SF tracker.
Assigning to David OS as he inherited similar requests from Jane after she left.
David, please see discussion thread; is this request still current?

Thanks,

Paola