The solid-state structures of
Bombyx mori silk fibroin before and after spinning were determined with several solid-state NMR. A repeated β-turn type II structure was proposed for the former model and a heterogeneous structure which consists of two kinds of β-sheet structure with different inter-chain arrangement and distorted β-turn for the latter. New silk-like materials with several repeated sequences selected from
B. mori and
Samia cynthia ricini silk fibroins, and spider dragline silk were designed and produced using genetic engineering methods. The silk-like materials containing the cell-adhesive sequence, Arg-Gly-Asp, from fibronectin were produced similarly and their high cell-adhesive abilities were observed.
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