title: Recombinant Structural Proteins and Their Use in Future Materials.
abstract: Recombinant proteins are polymers that offer the materials engineer absolute control over chain length and composition: key attributes required for design of advanced polymeric materials. Through this control, these polymers can be encoded to contain information that enables them to respond as the environment changes. However, despite their promise, protein-based materials are under-represented in materials science. In this chapter we investigate why this is and describe recent efforts to address this. We discuss constraints limiting rational design of structural proteins for advanced materials; advantages and disadvantages of different recombinant expression platforms; and, methods to fabricate proteins into solid-state materials. Finally, we describe the silk proteins used in our laboratory as templates for information-containing polymers.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO, Black Mountain, 2601, Canberra, ACT, Australia. Tara.Sutherland@CSIRO.AU.
authors.forename: Tara D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Sutherland
authors.affiliation: CSIRO, Black Mountain, 2601, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Trevor D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Rapson
authors.affiliation: CSIRO, Waurn Ponds, 3216, Geelong, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Mickey G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Huson
authors.affiliation: CSIRO, Waurn Ponds, 3216, Geelong, VIC, Australia.
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Church
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000639:trends*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000138:chemical synthesis*
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins
keywords: Advanced materials; Collagen; Elastin; Recombinant protein; Resilin; Silk