VenomCap: An exon-capture probe set for the targeted sequencing of snake venom genes

To better understand the genetic diversity underlying snake venoms, we developed VenomCap, a novel exon capture probe set targeting toxin coding genes from a wide range of elapid snakes, with a particular focus on the ecologically diverse and medically important subfamily Hydrophiinae. We tested the capture success of VenomCap across 24 species, representing all major elapid lineages. We included snake phylogenomic probes in the VenomCap capture set, allowing us to compare capture performance between venom and phylogenomic loci and to infer elapid phylogenetic relationships. The VenomCap probe set was able to recover exons from approximately 1500 target markers, representing a total of 24 known venom gene families, which includes the dominant gene families found in elapid venoms. The capture results are robust across all elapids sampled, and especially among hydrophiines, with respect to measures of target capture success, such as target loci matched, sensitivity, specificity, and missing data. As a cost effective and efficient alternative to full genome sequencing, VenomCap can dramatically accelerate the sequencing and analysis of venom gene families.