Elucidation and mimicry of velvet worm slime fiber formation: Towards sustainable polymer fabrication

绒虫粘液纤维形成的阐明和模拟：迈向可持续聚合物制造

• 批准号: 314397922
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Georg Mayer
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Fachgebiet Zoologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/314397922?language=en
• 关键词: Elucidation; mimicry; velvet; worm; slime

The prey capture secretion of velvet worms is a rich source of biomimetic inspiration towards circular processing of advanced polymers. In nature, velvet worms employ a fluid, protein-rich secretion for hunting and defense, which rapidly forms stiff fibers. The fluid-to-fiber transition occurs outside the body, indicating that the “instructions” for assembly are programmed into the protein building blocks. Intramolecular electrostatic interactions drive protein folding and self-organization (coacervation) into nanoscale droplets, which can be instantly transformed into fibers via simple mechanical stimulus. At the nanoscale, proteins partially unfold, merge together and form a strong network, which solidifies into a glassy polymeric solid - a process, which is fully reversible. However, the underlying principles responsible for this remarkable natural recyclable polymer remain poorly understood. The goal of this interdisciplinary project is therefore to further clarify the physico-chemical principles of the reversible transformation process and to undertake the first steps towards mimicking the circular behavior of the capture slime. We will therefore identify the most abundant slime proteins using transcriptomics and de-novo-sequencing and analyze post-translational modifications, which play a key role in the electrostatic interactions of slime proteins. Subsequently, we will take steps towards recombinant expression of slime proteins for biomimetic materials fabrication.

丝绒蠕虫的猎物捕获分泌物是高级聚合物循环加工的仿生灵感的丰富来源。在自然界中，丝绒蠕虫利用富含蛋白质的液体分泌物进行捕猎和防御，这种分泌物会迅速形成坚硬的纤维。纤维转变发生在体外，表明组装的“指令”被编程到蛋白质构建块中，分子内静电相互作用驱动蛋白质折叠和自组织（凝聚）。纳米级的液滴，可以通过简单的机械刺激立即转化为纤维，在纳米级，蛋白质部分展开、融合在一起并形成强大的网络，然后固化成玻璃状聚合物固体——这一过程是完全可逆的。因此，人们对这种非凡的天然可回收聚合物的基本原理仍知之甚少，因此，这个跨学科项目的目标是进一步阐明可逆转化过程的物理化学原理，并迈出模仿捕获循环行为的第一步。因此，我们将利用转录组学和从头测序来鉴定最丰富的粘液蛋白，并分析翻译后修饰，这些修饰在粘液蛋白的静电相互作用中发挥着关键作用。随后，我们将采取措施重组表达粘液。用于仿生材料制造的蛋白质。