Spider minor ampullate silk proteins contain new repetitive sequences and highly conserved non‐silk‐like “spacer regions”
Abstract
Spider minor ampullate silk is a strong non‐elastic deformably stretchable silk used in web formation. This silk from Nephila clavipes is composed of two proteins, MiSp 1 and 2, whose transcripts are 9.5 and 7.5 kb, respectively, as determined by northern blots. Both MiSp proteins are organized into a predominantly repetitive region and a small nonrepetitive carboxy terminal region. These highly repetitive regions are composed mainly of glycine and alanine, but also contain tyrosine, glutamine, and arginine. The sequences are mainly GGX and GA repeats. The repetitive regions are interrupted by nonrepetitive serine‐rich spacer regions. Although the sequences of the spacer regions differ from the repetitive regions, sequences of the spacers from different regions of the proteins are nearly identical. The sequence differences between major and minor ampullate silks may explain the differing mechanical properties of the fibers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1998
- Source ID
- 10.1002/pro.5560070315
Entities
People
- Mark A. Colgin
- Randolph V Lewis
Organizations
- Army Research Office