✍ Scribed by Olena S. Rabotyagova; Peggy Cebe; David L. Kaplan
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Genetically engineered spider silk‐like block copolymers were studied to determine the influence of polyalanine domain size on secondary structure. The role of polyalanine block distribution on β‐sheet formation was explored using FT‐IR and WAXS. The number of polyalanine blocks had a direct effect on the formation of crystalline β‐sheets, reflected in the change in crystallinity index as the blocks of polyalanines increased. WAXS analysis confirmed the crystalline nature of the sample with the largest number of polyalanine blocks. This approach provides a platform for further exploration of the role of specific amino acid chemistries in regulating the assembly of β‐sheet secondary structures, leading to options to regulate material properties through manipulation of this key component in spider silks.
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📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES
A matrix treatment of the formation of intramolecular anti-parallel P-sheets from a statistical coil has been extended to incorporate interstrand loops of arbitrary size. The behavior of the model is compared with a simpler version in which all pairs of contiguous strands were connected by P-bends.