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Updated: Mar 10, 2026

Synthetic Spider Silk Production on a Laboratory Scale
Published on: July 18, 2012
Secondary Structure Adopted by the Gly-Gly-X Repetitive Regions of Dragline Spider Silk
Geoffrey M Gray1, Arjan van der Vaart2, Chengchen Guo3
1Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue CHE 205, Tampa, FL 33620-9998, USA. gmgray2@mail.usf.edu.
Abstract:
Solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are presented to help elucidate the molecular secondary structure of poly(Gly-Gly-X), which is one of the most common structural repetitive motifs found in orb-weaving dragline spider silk proteins. The combination of NMR and computational experiments provides insight into the molecular secondary structure of poly(Gly-Gly-X) segments and provides further support that these regions are disordered and primarily non-β-sheet. Furthermore, the combination of NMR and MD simulations illustrate the possibility for several secondary structural elements in the poly(Gly-Gly-X) regions of dragline silks, including β-turns, 310-helicies, and coil structures with a negligible population of α-helix observed.
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