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Dragline silk fiber was originally thought to be made up of two types of spidroins, spidroin-1 (MaSp1) and spidroin-2 (MaSp2) however recent transcriptomic analysis of over 1000 spider species has revealed multiple spidroins are expressed making it much more complex. [2] [3] [4] Spidroin is part of a large group of proteins called scleroproteins.
Animal fibers are natural fibers that consist largely of certain proteins. Examples include silk, hair/fur (including wool) and feathers. The animal fibers used most commonly both in the manufacturing world as well as by the hand spinners are wool from domestic sheep and silk. Also very popular are alpaca fiber and mohair from Angora goats.
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. [1] The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal wool. As an animal fiber, wool consists of protein together with a small percentage of lipids. This makes ...
Natural fibers are also used in composite materials, much like synthetic or glass fibers. These composites, called biocomposites, are a natural fiber in a matrix of synthetic polymers. [1] One of the first biofiber-reinforced plastics in use was a cellulose fiber in phenolics in 1908. [1]
Spider silk structure: crystalline beta-sheets separated by amorphous linkages. Silks have a hierarchical structure. The primary structure is the amino acid sequence of its proteins (), mainly consisting of highly repetitive glycine and alanine blocks, [4] [5] which is why silks are often referred to as a block co-polymer.
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. [1] The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity (sericulture).
In animals, the structurally similar glucose polymer is the more densely branched glycogen, sometimes called "animal starch". Glycogen's properties allow it to be metabolized more quickly, which suits the active lives of moving animals. In bacteria, they play an important role in bacterial multicellularity. [5]
[20] [21] Although there is no dense collagen network in adipose tissue, groups of adipose cells are kept together by collagen fibers and collagen sheets in order to keep fat tissue under compression in place (for example, the sole of the foot). Both the ground substance and proteins (fibers) create the matrix for connective tissue.