Biochemistry of tropoelastin and elastin

弹性蛋白是负责脊椎动物组织弹性的主要蛋白质。韦斯实验室制造了大量全长弹性蛋白原，这些弹性蛋白原被交联成弹性蛋白。我们想研究原弹性蛋白的生物化学，了解其结构域如何参与弹性蛋白的结构和组装，并探索细胞对我们合成的弹性蛋白生物材料的反应。由于弹性蛋白是弹性蛋白原多聚体的高度交联且基本上不溶性的宏观网络，因此对这种生物化学知之甚少。我们的弹性蛋白原和合成弹性蛋白的可用性现在使这些研究成为可能。

Elastin is the main protein responsible for the elasticity of vertebrate tissues. The Weiss Lab makes large quantities of full-length tropoelastin, which is crosslinked to make elastin. We want to examine the biochemistry of tropoelastin, learn how its domains participate in elastin structure and assembly, and explore cellular responses to our synthetic elastin biomaterial. Remarkably little is known of this biochemistry because elastin is a highly cross-linked and substantially insoluble macroscopic network of tropoelastin multimers. Our availability of tropoelastin and synthetic elastin now makes these studies possible.