The Role of Alanine Sequences in Forming β-Sheets of Spider Dragline Silk

摘要

The study of A4 and A7 provides the first direct evidence that the longer stretches of seven alanines account in principle for the β-sheets in the MaSp 1, while the shorter runs of four alanines alone do not. A buildup of the polypeptide strand by accretion of stretches of alanines with different length, nucleated by A7 runs, could account for the crystalline region of the dragline silk.