Our interest in elucidation of a functional unit that drives self-assembly of reflectin-based materials has led us to develop an approach for systematic investigation of a library of reflectin-based protein sequences.  Cassette-based cloning and concatemerization techniques are being utilized to synthesize genes encoding tandem repeats of reflectin-mimetic amino acid sequences.  Reflectin constructs of interest include the reflectin 1a domain 3(D3) monomer, a domain 3 dimer, recombinant reflectin 1b, an elastin-reflectin diblock, and an elastin-reflectin-GFP fusion.  After construction of the sequences of interest at the DNA level, protein expression was carried out in a bacterial host.  Approximately 10-20 mg protein/L cell culture is obtained for each construct.  Future experiments will include structural characterization of these novel protein-based biomaterials, construction of additional elastin-reflectin fusion chimeras, as well as construction of other block copolymer materials encoding reflectin sequences.

Reflectin-based protein polymers:  Biosynthesis and characterization

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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