Nephila clavipes Spider Dragline Silk Microstructure Studied by

Mar 13, 2007 - The surface of fresh spider silk sections consists of a ∼30−120 nm thick layer of highly oriented protein chains, which was found t...
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Nephila clavipes Spider Dragline Silk Microstructure Studied by Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy Marie-Eve Rousseau,† Daniel Herna´ ndez Cruz,‡ M. Marcia West,‡ Adam P. Hitchcock,‡ and Michel Pe´ zolet*,† Contribution from the CERSIM, CREFSIP, De´ partement de Chimie, UniVersite´ LaVal, Que´ bec, Canada G1K 7P4, and the Department of Chemistry, McMaster UniVersity, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1 Received October 23, 2006; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Nephila clavipes dragline silk microstructure has been investigated by scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM), a technique that allows quantitative mapping of the level of orientation of the peptide groups at high spatial resolution (