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Science 30 March 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5513, pp. 2603 - 2605
DOI: 10.1126/science.1057561
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Reports

Extreme Diversity, Conservation, and Convergence of Spider Silk Fibroin Sequences

John Gatesy,*dagger ddagger Cheryl Hayashi,*dagger ddagger Dagmara Motriuk, Justin Woods, Randolph Lewis

Spiders (Araneae) spin high-performance silks from liquid fibroin proteins. Fibroin sequences from basal spider lineages reveal mosaics of amino acid motifs that differ radically from previously described spider silk sequences. The silk fibers of Araneae are constructed from many protein designs. Yet, the repetitive sequences of fibroins from orb-weaving spiders have been maintained, presumably by stabilizing selection, over 125 million years of evolutionary history. The retention of these conserved motifs since the Mesozoic and their convergent evolution in other structural superproteins imply that these sequences are central to understanding the exceptional mechanical properties of orb weaver silks.

Department of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
*   Present address: Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

dagger    These authors contributed equally to this work.

ddagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)