title: Purification and characterization of recombinant spider silk expressed in Escherichia coli.
abstract: A partial cDNA clone, from the 3' end of the dragline silk gene was isolated from Nephila clavipes major ampullate glands. This clone contains a 1.7-kb insert, consisting of a repetitive coding region of 1.4-kb and a 0.3-kb nonrepetitive coding region; 1.5-kb of the 1.7-kb fragment was cloned into Escherichia coli and a 43-kDa recombinant silk protein was expressed. Characterization of the purified protein by Western blot, amino acid composition analysis, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization/time-of-flight mass spectrometry confirms it to be spider dragline silk.
authors.affiliation: Biotechnology Division, U.S. Army Natick Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center, Natick, MA 01760, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arcidiacono
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mello
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cheley
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bayley
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics*; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D047011:Silk; D013112:Spiders
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D019476:Insect Proteins; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D047011:Silk