Supercontraction and backbone dynamics in spider silk:: 13C and 2H NMR studies

The high-performance mechanical properties of certain spider silks can be radically altered by the addition of water. For example, unconstrained silk fibers from the major ampullate gland of the golden orb-weaving spider, Nephila clavipes, contract to about half of their original length when immersed in water. In this paper we use solid-state C-13 and H-2 NMR to study N. clavipes silk fibers, so as to address the molecular origins of supercontraction in the wet silk. Using C-13 NMR, we study backbone dynamics and demonstrate that, when in contact with water, a substantial fraction of the glycine, glutamine, tyrosine, serine, and leucine residues in the protein backbone show dramatic increases in the rate of large-amplitude reorientation. 2H NMR of silk samples that incorporate leucine deuterated at one terminal methyl group provides a probe for dynamics at specific side chains along the fiber. Only a subset of these leucine residues is strongly affected by water. We suggest that the highly conserved YGGLGS(N)QGAGR blocks found in the silk protein play a major role in the supercontraction process. Amino acid sequences are proposed to produce artificial spider silk with similar mechanical properties, but without the undesired phenomenon of supercontraction. A possible use of the supercontracting sequence is also suggested.