Publication Date:
1999-11-05
Description:
Diatom cell walls are regarded as a paradigm for controlled production of nanostructured silica, but the mechanisms allowing biosilicification to proceed at ambient temperature at high rates have remained enigmatic. A set of polycationic peptides (called silaffins) isolated from diatom cell walls were shown to generate networks of silica nanospheres within seconds when added to a solution of silicic acid. Silaffins contain covalently modified lysine-lysine elements. The first lysine bears a polyamine consisting of 6 to 11 repeats of the N-methyl-propylamine unit. The second lysine was identified as epsilon-N,N-dimethyl-lysine. These modifications drastically influence the silica-precipitating activity of silaffins.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kroger, N -- Deutzmann, R -- Sumper, M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1999 Nov 5;286(5442):1129-32.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Lehrstuhl Biochemie I, Universitat Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany. nils.kroeger@vkl.uni-regensburg.de〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10550045" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Algal Proteins/*chemistry/genetics/isolation & purification/metabolism
;
Amino Acid Motifs
;
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Bacterial Proteins/*chemistry/genetics/isolation & purification/metabolism
;
Cell Wall/chemistry/metabolism
;
Chemical Precipitation
;
Diatoms/*chemistry/metabolism
;
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
;
Lysine/analogs & derivatives/chemistry
;
Mass Spectrometry
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Molecular Weight
;
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular
;
Peptides
;
Propylamines/chemistry
;
Protein Isoforms/chemistry
;
Proteins/*chemistry/genetics/isolation & purification/metabolism
;
Repetitive Sequences, Amino Acid
;
Silicic Acid/chemistry/*metabolism
;
Silicon Dioxide/chemistry/*metabolism
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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