Spider silk proteins: recombinant production, structure-function relationships and biomedical applications

摘要

Spider silk is an outstanding material made up of unique proteins - spidroins. Spidroins have a tripartite composition; an N-terminal non-repetitive domain of about 130 residues, a highly repetitive central part composed of-100 poly-Ala/Gly-rich co-segments, and a C-terminal non-repetitive domain of about 100 residues. Recent data on the N- and C-terminal domains at a molecular level indicate that they have different specific functions in the formation of spider silk fibres. The composite nature of spidroins allows for