Recombinant Dragline Silk-Like Proteins-Expression and Purification

Spider dragline silk is a proteinaceous fiber with impressive physical characteristics making it attractive for use in advanced materials. The fiber is composed of two proteins (spidroins MaSp1 and MaSp2), each of which contains a large central repeat array flanked by non-repetitive N- and C-terminal domains. The repeat arrays appear to be largely responsible for the tensile properties of the fiber, suggesting that the N- and C-terminal domains may be involved in self-assembly. We recently isolated the MaSp1 and MaSp2 N-terminal domains from Nephila clavipes and have incorporated these into mini-silk genes for expression in transgenic systems. Current efforts involve the development of expression vectors that will allow purification using a removable affinity tag for scalable protein purification.