Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), 1-2 Owashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8634, Japan.
Biomacromolecules. 2023 Sep 11;24(9):4208-4217. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.3c00533. Epub 2023 Aug 18.
Silk fiber produced by the silkworm is a nature-derived proteinous fiber with excellent mechanical strength and broad biocompatibility. To alter its material properties and make it more suitable for textile, biomedical, and electronics applications, chemical modifications and genetic engineering methods have been extensively studied. Here, we report that the translational incorporation of a synthetic amino acid, 3-azidotyrosine (3-AzTyr), into silk fiber can improve its material properties. Such an incorporation considerably increased the fiber's mechanical strength and remarkably changed its solubility, whereas its crystalline hierarchical structure was not perturbed, as shown by X-ray analyses. These changes were probably caused by the intra- and/or intermolecular crosslinkings involving the azido group of 3-AzTyr during the degumming process to remove a coating protein. These findings indicate that the incorporation of synthetic amino acids could be an efficient method to improve the properties of silk-based materials.
蚕丝是一种由蚕产生的天然蛋白质纤维，具有优异的机械强度和广泛的生物相容性。为了改变其材料性能，使其更适合纺织品、生物医学和电子应用，已经广泛研究了化学修饰和基因工程方法。在这里，我们报告说，通过翻译将合成氨基酸 3-叠氮酪氨酸（3-AzTyr）掺入蚕丝纤维中可以改善其材料性能。这种掺入大大提高了纤维的机械强度，并显著改变了其溶解度，而其晶体的分层结构没有受到影响，这可以通过 X 射线分析证明。这些变化可能是由于在脱胶过程中去除涂层蛋白时涉及 3-AzTyr 的叠氮基团的分子内和/或分子间交联引起的。这些发现表明，掺入合成氨基酸可能是一种有效改善丝基材料性能的方法。
