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Research article2017Peer reviewed

Degree of Biomimicry of Artificial Spider Silk Spinning Assessed by NMR Spectroscopy

Otikovs, Martins; Andersson, Marlene; Jia, Qiupin; Nordling, Kerstin; Meng, Qing; Andreas, Loren B.; Pintacuda, Guido; Johansson, Jan; Rising, Anna; Jaudzems, Kristaps

Abstract

Biomimetic spinning of artificial spider silk requires that the terminal domains of designed minispidroins undergo specific structural changes in concert with the beta-sheet conversion of the repetitive region. Herein, we combine solution and solid-state NMR methods to probe domain-specific structural changes in the NT2RepCT minispidroin, which allows us to assess the degree of biomimicry of artificial silk spinning. In addition, we show that the structural effects of post-spinning procedures can be examined. By studying the impact of NT2RepCT fiber drying, we observed a reversible beta-to-alpha conversion. We think that this approach will be useful for guiding the optimization of artificial spider silk fibers.

Keywords

biomimicry; fibrous proteins; NMR spectroscopy; spider silk

Published in

Angewandte Chemie International Edition
2017, Volume: 56, number: 41, pages: 12571-12575
Publisher: WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

      SLU Authors

          • UKÄ Subject classification

          Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

          Publication identifier

          DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201706649

          Permanent link to this page (URI)

          https://res.slu.se/id/publ/90937