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.

天鹅绒蠕虫捕捉猎物的分泌物是先进聚合物循环加工的仿生灵感的丰富来源。在自然界中，天鹅绒蠕虫利用富含蛋白质的液体分泌物进行狩猎和防御，从而迅速形成坚硬的纤维。液体到纤维的转变发生在体外，这表明组装的“指令”被编程到蛋白质构建块中。分子内的静电相互作用推动蛋白质折叠和自组织(凝聚)形成纳米级的液滴，这些液滴可以通过简单的机械刺激立即转化为纤维。在纳米尺度上，蛋白质部分展开，合并在一起，形成一个强大的网络，这个网络固化成玻璃状的聚合物固体--这是一个完全可逆的过程。然而，对这种非凡的天然可回收聚合物的基本原理仍然知之甚少。因此，这一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，并采取第一步来模拟捕获黏液的循环行为。因此，我们将使用转录组学和去新测序来鉴定最丰富的粘液蛋白，并分析翻译后修饰，这在粘液蛋白的静电相互作用中起着关键作用。随后，我们将逐步实现黏液蛋白的重组表达，以用于仿生材料的制作。