Publication Date:
1996-04-05
Description:
Spiders produce a variety of silks that range from Lycra-like elastic fibers to Kevlar-like superfibers. A gene family from the spider Araneus diadematus was found to encode silk-forming proteins (fibroins) with different proportions of amorphous glycine-rich domains and crystal domains built from poly(alanine) and poly(glycine-alanine) repeat motifs. Spiders produce silks of different composition by gland-specific expression of this gene family, which allows for a range of mechanical properties according to the crystal-forming potential of the constituent fibroins. These principles of fiber property control may be important in the development of genetically engineered structural proteins.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Guerette, P A -- Ginzinger, D G -- Weber, B H -- Gosline, J M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1996 Apr 5;272(5258):112-5.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8600519" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Amino Acids/analysis
;
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
Blotting, Northern
;
Crystallization
;
DNA, Complementary/genetics
;
Exocrine Glands/*metabolism
;
Fibroins/*chemistry/genetics
;
Gene Expression Regulation
;
Gene Library
;
*Insect Proteins
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Peptides/analysis
;
Proline/analysis
;
Protein Structure, Secondary
;
Proteins/chemistry/genetics
;
*Silk
;
Spiders/*chemistry/genetics
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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