Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Garb JE
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6658490 | biostudies-literature | 2019
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Communications biology 20190725
Darwin's bark spider (<i>Caerostris darwini</i>) produces giant orb webs from dragline silk that can be twice as tough as other silks, making it the toughest biological material. This extreme toughness comes from increased extensibility relative to other draglines. We show <i>C. darwini</i> dragline-producing major ampullate (MA) glands highly express a novel silk gene transcript (MaSp4) encoding a protein that diverges markedly from closely related proteins and contains abundant proline, known ...[more]