At a stretch

Rosamund Daw

Nature, 2005, vol. 437, issue 7061, 961-961

Abstract: Stretching a point The elastic properties of the protein called resilin were discovered about 40 years ago during studies of the flight systems of locusts and dragonflies. It is used in repetitive tasks by most insects, including jumping fleas and chirping cicadas. Resilin is formed by crosslinking of a precursor protein, pro-resilin. The elastic region of pro-resilin has now been isolated in pure form in large quantities following expression of its gene in Escherichia coli. The recombinant pro-resilin can be photochemically crosslinked into a rubber-like material with many of the properties of natural resilin. The synthetic material can be cast into useful shapes, and its capacity to recover after deformation exceeds that of high-resilience rubber, making it a promising candidate for industrial and in situ biomedical applications.

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1038/437961a

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