{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,23]],"date-time":"2025-09-23T13:32:53Z","timestamp":1758634373900,"version":"3.37.3"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"Portland Press Ltd.","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,30]],"date-time":"2021-04-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1619740800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["portlandpress.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,30]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This short essay pretends to make the reader reflect on the concept of biological mass and on the added value that the determination of this molecular property of a protein brings to the interpretation of evolutionary and translational snake venomics research. Starting from the premise that the amino acid sequence is the most distinctive primary molecular characteristics of any protein, the thesis underlying the first part of this essay is that the isotopic distribution of a protein's molecular mass serves to unambiguously differentiate it from any other of an organism's proteome. In the second part of the essay, we discuss examples of collaborative projects among our laboratories, where mass profiling of snake venom PLA2 across conspecific populations played a key role revealing dispersal routes that determined the current phylogeographic pattern of the species.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1042\/bst20210288","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,30]],"date-time":"2021-04-30T20:47:03Z","timestamp":1619815623000},"page":"1027-1037","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1042\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["What's in a mass?"],"prefix":"10.1042","volume":"49","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5026-3122","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Juan J.","family":"Calvete","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Evolutionary and Translational Venomics Laboratory, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia, CSIC, Valencia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Libia","family":"Sanz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Evolutionary and Translational Venomics Laboratory, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia, CSIC, Valencia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Diana","family":"Mora-Obando","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Evolutionary and Translational Venomics Laboratory, Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia, CSIC, Valencia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2419-6469","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bruno","family":"Lomonte","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto Clodomiro Picado, Facultad de Microbiolog\u00eda, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Anita M.","family":"Tanaka-Azevedo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laborat\u00f3rio de Herpetologia, Instituto Butantan, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brasil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Karen","family":"de Morais-Zani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laborat\u00f3rio de Herpetologia, Instituto Butantan, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brasil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"S\u00e1vio S.","family":"Sant'Anna","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laborat\u00f3rio de Herpetologia, Instituto Butantan, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brasil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Cle\u00f3patra A.S.","family":"Caldeira","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centro de Estudos de Biomol\u00e9culas Aplicadas a Sa\u00fade (CEBio), Funda\u00e7\u00e3o Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz Rond\u00f4nia, Porto Velho, RO, Brasil"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"288","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,30]]},"reference":[{"first-page":"452","volume-title":"Savage Africa: Being the Narrative of A Tour in Equatorial, Southwestern and Northwestern Africa","year":"1864","key":"2021111916104366900_BST-2021-0288C1"},{"key":"2021111916104366900_BST-2021-0288C2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1119\/1.2150758","article-title":"There is no really good definition of mass","volume":"44","year":"2006","journal-title":"Phys. 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