Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Synthetic Spider Silk Production on a Laboratory Scale
Published on: July 18, 2012
Molecular design of performance proteins with repetitive sequences: recombinant flagelliform spider silk as basis for
Charlotte Vendrely1, Christian Ackerschott, Lin Römer
1TUM, Department Chemie, Lehrstuhl Biotechnologie, Garching, Germany.
Abstract:
Most performance proteins responsible for the mechanical stability of cells and organisms reveal highly repetitive sequences. Mimicking such performance proteins is of high interest for the design of nanostructured biomaterials. In this article, flagelliform silk is exemplary introduced to describe a general principle for designing genes of repetitive performance proteins for recombinant expression in Escherichia coli . In the first step, repeating amino acid sequence motifs are reversely transcripted into DNA cassettes, which can in a second step be seamlessly ligated, yielding a designed gene. Recombinant expression thereof leads to proteins mimicking the natural ones. The recombinant proteins can be assembled into nanostructured materials in a controlled manner, allowing their use in several applications.
Related Concept Videos
Fibrous Proteins
Globular and Fibrous Proteins
Globular proteins are also known as spheroproteins and typically are approximately round in shape. They contain a mix of amino acid types and contain differing sequences in their primary structures. Globular proteins have many different functions, such as enzymes, cellular messengers, and molecular transporters. These roles often require the proteins to be...
Assembly of Cytoskeletal Filaments
