Characterization of Toxin Genes from a Scorpion with Mild Venom

Venomous animals have long fascinated and terrified humans. Among them, scorpions have been noted for their medically important venom. All scorpions are venomous, yet only the Buthid family is seen as markedly harmful to humans. Within the Buthids, some species are known to significantly affect humans, yet other species do not. Much of the previous work has focused upon venom toxin proteins and genes in known medically relevant species, with little attention to those scorpion species possessing mild venom. Scorpion species with mild venom may house components amenable for medical research. In our current research work, we investigate and characterize sodium channel toxin genes in C. vittatus, a species in the medically important genus, Centruroides. Here we present our research activities to investigate the variability and organization of sodium toxin genes from a genomic analysis. We report our findings from a MiSeq and a PacBio genomic analysis. Our initial data analysis showed an N50 of 2,062 and 42,022 with a genome size of 190 Mb and 175 Mb for the MiSeq and PacBio assemblies, respectively. We discuss these and other data from the two assemblies.