Kadir Murat, Wang Xinwei, Zhu Bowen, Liu Jing, Harland Duane, Popescu Crisan
Lubrizol Advanced Materials, Inc., 9911 Brecksville Road, Brecksville, OH 44141, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2025 Black Engineering Building, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
J Struct Biol. 2017 May;198(2):116-123. doi: 10.1016/j.jsb.2017.04.001. Epub 2017 Apr 5.
Various keratin fibers, particularly human hairs, were investigated by transmission electron microscopy, TEM, solid-state H NMR and Transient Electro-Thermal Technique, TET. The results converge to suggest that the matrix of keratin fiber cortex, far from being amorphous, has a well-defined nano-scale grainy structure, the size of these grains being around 2-4nm. The size of the grains appears to strongly depend on the chemical treatment of the fiber, on the temperature and on the relative humidity of the environment, as well as on the physiological factors at the level of fiber production in follicle. By suggesting an organization at the nano-scale of the protein chains in these grains, likely to be Keratin Associated Proteins, the results challenge the view of matrix as a homogeneous glassy material. Moreover, they indicate the potential of further investigating the purpose of this structure that appears to reflect not only chemical treatments of keratins but also biological processes at the level of the follicle.
利用透射电子显微镜（TEM）、固态核磁共振（H NMR）以及瞬态电热技术（TET），对各种角蛋白纤维，尤其是人类毛发进行了研究。研究结果一致表明，角蛋白纤维皮质的基质远非无定形，而是具有明确的纳米级颗粒结构，这些颗粒的大小约为2-4纳米。颗粒的大小似乎强烈依赖于纤维的化学处理、温度、环境的相对湿度，以及毛囊中纤维产生水平的生理因素。通过表明这些颗粒中蛋白质链的纳米级组织，可能是角蛋白相关蛋白，研究结果对基质是均匀玻璃状材料的观点提出了挑战。此外，它们还表明了进一步研究这种结构目的的潜力，这种结构似乎不仅反映了角蛋白的化学处理，还反映了毛囊水平的生物过程。
