Publication Date:
2002-01-19
Description:
Spider silks are protein-based "biopolymer" filaments or threads secreted by specialized epithelial cells as concentrated soluble precursors of highly repetitive primary sequences. Spider dragline silk is a flexible, lightweight fiber of extraordinary strength and toughness comparable to that of synthetic high-performance fibers. We sought to "biomimic" the process of spider silk production by expressing in mammalian cells the dragline silk genes (ADF-3/MaSpII and MaSpI) of two spider species. We produced soluble recombinant (rc)-dragline silk proteins with molecular masses of 60 to 140 kilodaltons. We demonstrated the wet spinning of silk monofilaments spun from a concentrated aqueous solution of soluble rc-spider silk protein (ADF-3; 60 kilodaltons) under modest shear and coagulation conditions. The spun fibers were water insoluble with a fine diameter (10 to 40 micrometers) and exhibited toughness and modulus values comparable to those of native dragline silks but with lower tenacity. Dope solutions with rc-silk protein concentrations 〉20% and postspinning draw were necessary to achieve improved mechanical properties of the spun fibers. Fiber properties correlated with finer fiber diameter and increased birefringence.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lazaris, Anthoula -- Arcidiacono, Steven -- Huang, Yue -- Zhou, Jiang-Feng -- Duguay, Francois -- Chretien, Nathalie -- Welsh, Elizabeth A -- Soares, Jason W -- Karatzas, Costas N -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2002 Jan 18;295(5554):472-6.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Nexia Biotechnologies, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec J7V 8P5, Canada. alazaris@nexiabiotech.com〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11799236" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amino Acid Motifs
;
Amino Acid Sequence
;
Animals
;
Biopolymers
;
Birefringence
;
Cattle
;
Cell Line
;
Cloning, Molecular
;
Cricetinae
;
Culture Media, Conditioned
;
DNA, Complementary
;
Elasticity
;
Epithelial Cells/metabolism
;
*Fibroins
;
Materials Testing
;
Mechanics
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Molecular Weight
;
*Protein Biosynthesis
;
Protein Structure, Secondary
;
Proteins/chemistry/*genetics/isolation & purification
;
Recombinant Proteins/biosynthesis/chemistry/isolation & purification
;
Solubility
;
Spiders/*genetics/metabolism
;
Stress, Mechanical
;
Tensile Strength
;
Water
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
