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Structural Characterization Of Black Widow Spider Dragline Silk Proteins Crp1 And Crp4, Mikayla Shanafelt
Structural Characterization Of Black Widow Spider Dragline Silk Proteins Crp1 And Crp4, Mikayla Shanafelt
University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations
Spider dragline silk is a biomaterial with outstanding material properties, possessing high-tensile strength and toughness. In nature, dragline silk serves a central role during spider locomotion and web construction. Today, scientists are racing to elucidate the molecular machinery governing silk extrusion, attempting to translate this knowledge into a mimicry process in the laboratory to create synthetic fibers for a wide range of different applications. During extrusion, it has been established that biochemical and mechanical forces govern spidroin folding, aggregation, and assembly. In black widow spiders, at least 7 different proteins have been identified as constituents of dragline silk fibers. These …