Smith Andrew M, Morin Martha C
Department of Biology, Center for Natural Sciences, Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York 14850, USA.
Biol Bull. 2002 Dec;203(3):338-46. doi: 10.2307/1543576.
The composition of the adhesive form of marsh periwinkle mucus was compared to the trail mucus used during locomotion. The trail mucus consists primarily of large, carbohydrate-rich molecules with some relatively small proteins. In contrast, the adhesive mucus has 2.7 times as much protein with no significant difference in carbohydrate concentration. The resulting gel has roughly equal amounts of protein and carbohydrate. This substantial increase in protein content is due to the additional presence of two proteins with molecular weights of 41 and 36 kD. These two proteins are absent from the trail mucus. Both proteins are glycosylated, have similar amino acid compositions, and have isoelectric points of 4.75. This change in composition corresponds to an order of magnitude increase in tenacity with little clear change in overall concentration. The difference between adhesive and non-adhesive mucus suggests that relatively small proteins are important for controlling the mechanics of periwinkle mucus.
将海滨螺黏液的黏性形式的成分与运动过程中使用的痕迹黏液进行了比较。痕迹黏液主要由富含碳水化合物的大分子和一些相对较小的蛋白质组成。相比之下，黏性黏液的蛋白质含量是其2.7倍，而碳水化合物浓度没有显著差异。形成的凝胶中蛋白质和碳水化合物的含量大致相等。蛋白质含量的大幅增加是由于额外存在两种分子量分别为41 kD和36 kD的蛋白质。这两种蛋白质在痕迹黏液中不存在。这两种蛋白质都进行了糖基化，具有相似的氨基酸组成，等电点为4.75。这种成分变化对应着韧性增加了一个数量级，而总体浓度几乎没有明显变化。黏性和非黏性黏液之间的差异表明，相对较小的蛋白质对于控制滨螺黏液的力学性能很重要。
