George Matthew N, Carrington Emily
a Department of Biology , University of Washington , Seattle , USA.
b Friday Harbor Laboratories , Friday Harbor , USA.
Biofouling. 2018 Apr;34(4):388-397. doi: 10.1080/08927014.2018.1453927. Epub 2018 Apr 11.
Marine mussels (Mytilus trossulus) attach to a wide variety of surfaces underwater using a protein adhesive that is cured by the surrounding seawater environment. In this study, the influence of environmental post-processing on adhesion strength was investigated by aging adhesive plaques in a range of seawater pH conditions. Plaques took 8-12 days to achieve full strength at pH 8, nearly doubling in adhesion strength (+94%) and increasing the work required to dislodge (+59%). Holding plaques in low pH conditions prevented strengthening, causing the material to tear more frequently under tension. The timescale of strengthening is consistent with the conversion of DOPA to DOPA-quinone, a pH dependent process that promotes cross-linking between adhesive proteins. The precise arrangement of DOPA containing proteins away from the adhesive-substratum interface emphasizes the role that structural organization can have on function, an insight that could lead to the design of better synthetic adhesives and metal-coordinating hydrogels.
海洋贻贝（紫贻贝）利用一种在周围海水环境中固化的蛋白质粘合剂附着在水下的各种表面上。在本研究中，通过在一系列海水pH条件下对粘合剂斑块进行老化处理，研究了环境后处理对粘附强度的影响。在pH值为8时，斑块需要8至12天才能达到最大强度，粘附强度几乎增加了一倍（+94%），并且使分离所需的功增加（+59%）。将斑块置于低pH条件下会阻止其强化，导致材料在拉伸时更频繁地撕裂。强化的时间尺度与多巴向多巴醌的转化一致，这是一个依赖pH的过程，可促进粘附蛋白之间的交联。含多巴的蛋白质远离粘合剂 - 底物界面的精确排列强调了结构组织对功能的作用，这一见解可能会导致更好的合成粘合剂和金属配位水凝胶的设计。
