Kim Roelants

The team of Kim Roelants conducts multidisciplinary research to investigate evolutionary innovations in amphibians. This research focuses mostly on the evolution of defence systems, including antimicrobial peptides, antipredator poisons, adhesive skin secretions and secretions that sustain symbioses with aggressive arthropods. As these systems typically involve a diversity of peptides and proteins, they represent a direct link between an amphibian’s ecology and its genes, providing insightful models of ecological adaptation at the molecular scale. Ongoing projects combine genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic data with functional and behavioral experiments in a phylogenetic framework. Amphibians are the team’s primary study taxon but other branches of the Tree of Life, like placental mammals and protozoan parasites are occasionally investigated too.

• Mancuso, M., Zaman S., Maddock, S.T., Kamei, R.G., Salazar-Valenzuela, D., Wilkinson, M., Roelants, K. & Fry, B.G. (2023) Resistance is not futile: widespread convergent evolution of resistance to alpha-neurotoxic snake venoms in caecilians (Amphibia: Gymnophiona). International Journal of Molecular Sciences 24:11353.
• Raaymakers, C., Verbrugghe, E., Stijlemans, B., Martel, A., Pasmans, F. & Roelants, K. (2018) The anuran skin peptide bradykinin mediates its own absorption across epithelial barriers of the digestive tract. Peptides. 103: 84–89.
• Raaymakers, C., Verbrugghe, E., Hernot, S., Hellebuyck, T., Betti, C., Peleman, C., Claeys, M., Bert, W., Caveliers, V., Ballet, S., Martel, A., Pasmans, F. & Roelants, K. (2017) Antimicrobial peptides in frog poisons constitute a molecular toxin delivery system against predators. Nature Communications 8: 1495.