Silk Fibroin of Bombyx mori Is Secreted, Assembling a High Molecular Mass Elementary Unit Consisting of H-chain, L-chain, and P25, with a 6:6:1 Molar Ratio*

By S. Inoue, Kazunori Tanaka, F. Arisaka, S. Kimura, K. Ohtomo, S. Mizuno. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2000

651 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Silk fibroin produced by the silkwormBombyx mori consists of a heavy chain, a light chain, and a glycoprotein, P25. The heavy and light chains are linked by a disulfide bond, and P25 associates with disulfide-linked heavy and light chains by noncovalent interactions. Quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay revealed that molar ratios of the heavy chain, light chain, and P25 were 6:6:1, both in cocoons and in fibroin secreted into the lumen of posterior silk gland. Trace amounts of fibroin produced by three “naked pupa” mutants of B. mori lacked the light chain, but the molar ratio of heavy chain and P25 was also 6:1. Gel filtration chromatography and sedimentation equilibrium analysis demonstrated that a large protein complex of approximately 2.3 MDa, designated an elementary unit of fibroin having 6:6:1 molar ratios of the heavy chain, light chain, and P25, existed in posterior silk gland cells. Inaccessibility of biotinylated concanavalin A to the native elementary unit and partial dissociation of the elementary unit after incubation with excess N-glycosidase F or endoglycosidase H suggest that a single molecule of P25 is located internally and plays an important role in maintaining integrity of the complex.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Immunology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4f45c87d4a4378b4448413038710923387cfc133

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Citations in the corpus

• Composite materials based on silk proteins (2010, background): “Silkworm cocoons Fibroins Mechanical properties [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] and [18]”
• The silk proteins , sericin and fibroin in silkworm , Bombyx mori (2007, background): “The N-linked oligosaccharide chain of P25 has been suggested to be involved in the later interactions (Inoue et al., 2000).”
• Silk fibroin biomaterials for tissue regenerations. (2013, background): “H-fibroin, L-fibroin, and P25 are assembled in the ratio of 6:6:1 in mulberry silk [17].”
• Silk fibroin as biomaterial for bone tissue engineering. (2016, background): “On both chains, the glycoprotein P25 is noncovalently attached to a set of 6 light and heavy chains [52,53].”