The transcriptome of Darwin’s bark spider silk glands predicts proteins contributing to dragline silk toughness
| Autor: | Ingi Agnarsson, Todd A. Blackledge, Matjaž Gregorič, Robert A. Haney, Evelyn E. Schwager, Jessica E. Garb, Matjaž Kuntner |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Darwin's bark spider
Medicine (miscellaneous) macromolecular substances complex mixtures Article General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Transcriptome Dragline excavator Animals Biomechanics Transcriptomics lcsh:QH301-705.5 Gene transcript Spider Amino acid motif biology fungi technology industry and agriculture Spiders equipment and supplies biology.organism_classification Biological materials SILK lcsh:Biology (General) Evolutionary biology Molecular evolution Insect Proteins Fibroins General Agricultural and Biological Sciences |
| Zdroj: | Communications Biology Communications Biology, Vol 2, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2019) |
| ISSN: | 2399-3642 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s42003-019-0496-1 |
| Popis: | Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini) produces giant orb webs from dragline silk that can be twice as tough as other silks, making it the toughest biological material. This extreme toughness comes from increased extensibility relative to other draglines. We show C. darwini dragline-producing major ampullate (MA) glands highly express a novel silk gene transcript (MaSp4) encoding a protein that diverges markedly from closely related proteins and contains abundant proline, known to confer silk extensibility, in a unique GPGPQ amino acid motif. This suggests C. darwini evolved distinct proteins that may have increased its dragline’s toughness, enabling giant webs. Caerostris darwini’s MA spinning ducts also appear unusually long, potentially facilitating alignment of silk proteins into extremely tough fibers. Thus, a suite of novel traits from the level of genes to spinning physiology to silk biomechanics are associated with the unique ecology of Darwin’s bark spider, presenting innovative designs for engineering biomaterials. Jessica Garb et al. report the transcriptome of the major ampullate silk gland of Darwin’s bark spider, known for its extraordinarily tough silk. They identify a novel predicted protein, MaSp4, which is highly divergent compared to related proteins in other species and has properties predicted to confer silk extensibility. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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