Cloning and Structure of Different Types of Spider Silk.

摘要

Based on the amino acid sequence of peptides derived from Nephila dragline silk we used DNA probes to identify several clones from a silk gland cDNA library. The largest of these clones (2.5 kb) has been partially (80%) sequenced. The sequence contains the poly A site, 340 base of 3' untranslated region and the rest protein coding region. The protein region consists of a basic 34 amino acid repeat. The repeat itself consists of three regions. The first consists of 0-9 amino acids with a sequence of AGR(GGX)2. Clearly this region is not highly conserved. The second region has a sequence of GAG(A)x which is highly conserved in all repeats. The third segment is (GGX)5 and is very highly conserved. Clones for other silk proteins are in various stages of isolation and sequencing. Keywords: Protein; Silk; Elasticity.