Abstract
The unit cell dimension of α-form silk fibroin was determined. The α-form of β-poly (Ala-Gly) and β-poly (-Ala-Gly-Ser-) synthesized as the model substances are examined for comparison with the α-form silk fibroin.
By comparison of, the following values for unit cell of α-form silk are obtained: a=4.45A b=28.0A (fiber axis) c=7.16A. 12 amino acid residues are to be in the unit cell, and so the mean repeating distance of one aminoacid of one amino acid residue is 2.4A.
This value indicates that the chain length of amino acid residue in α-form is shorter than that in β-form.
