School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, (Shenzhen Branch), Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 440307, P. R. China.
Biomacromolecules. 2022 Jun 13;23(6):2562-2571. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.2c00261. Epub 2022 May 13.
Insect cuticle is a fiber-reinforced composite material that consists of polysaccharide chitin fibers and a protein matrix. The molecular interactions between insect cuticle proteins and chitin that govern the assembly and evolution of cuticles are still not well understood. Herein, we report that cuticular protein hypothetical-1 (CPH-1), a newly discovered and most abundant cuticular protein from Asian corn borer , can form coacervates in the presence of chitosan. The CPH-1-chitosan coacervate microdroplets are initially liquid-like but become gel-like with increasing time or salt concentration. The liquid-to-gel transition is driven by hydrogen-bonding interactions, during which an induced β-sheet structure of CPH-1 is observed. Given the abundance of OCPH-1 in the cuticle of , this liquid-liquid phase separation process and its aging behavior could play critical roles in the formation of the cuticle.
昆虫外骨骼是一种纤维增强型复合材料，由多糖几丁质纤维和蛋白质基质组成。昆虫外骨骼蛋白与几丁质之间控制外骨骼组装和进化的分子相互作用仍未得到很好的理解。本文报道了一种新发现的、在亚洲玉米螟中含量最丰富的表皮蛋白假设蛋白-1（CPH-1），在壳聚糖存在的情况下可以形成凝聚体。CPH-1-壳聚糖凝聚体微滴最初呈液态，但随着时间或盐浓度的增加，会变成凝胶状。这种液-凝胶的转变是由氢键相互作用驱动的，在此过程中观察到 CPH-1 的诱导β-折叠结构。鉴于 OCPH-1 在 的外骨骼中大量存在，这种液-液相分离过程及其老化行为可能在外骨骼形成中发挥关键作用。
