Review the role of terminal domains during storage and assembly of spider silk proteins |
| |
Authors: | Eisoldt Lukas Thamm Christopher Scheibel Thomas |
| |
Institution: | Universit?t Bayreuth, Fakult?t für Angewandte Naturwissenschaften, Lehrstuhl Biomaterialien, Universit?tsstra?e 30, Bayreuth 95447, Germany. |
| |
Abstract: | Fibrous proteins in nature fulfill a wide variety of functions in different structures ranging from cellular scaffolds to very resilient structures like tendons and even extra-corporal fibers such as silks in spider webs or silkworm cocoons. Despite their different origins and sequence varieties many of these fibrous proteins share a common building principle: they consist of a large repetitive core domain flanked by relatively small non-repetitive terminal domains. Amongst protein fibers, spider dragline silk shows prominent mechanical properties that exceed those of man-made fibers like Kevlar. Spider silk fibers assemble in a spinning process allowing the transformation from an aqueous solution into a solid fiber within milliseconds. Here, we highlight the role of the non-repetitive terminal domains of spider dragline silk proteins during storage in the gland and initiation of the fiber assembly process. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|