Resilin
| Resilin | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mass / length primary structure | 620 amino acids | |
| Isoforms | A, B | |
| Identifier | ||
| Gene name (s) | resilin (FlyBase) | |
| External IDs | ||
| Occurrence | ||
| Parent taxon | insects | |
Resilin is a long-chain protein that is often found in nature, especially in various arthropods . It has rubber-like elastic properties (similar to elastin ); therefore the protein molecule can be pulled out to three times its length without breaking. The protein chains are linked by bridges made of di- and trimeric tyrosine .
Insects in particular use its excellent elastic properties. Examples:
- The dragonflies Resilin forms a micro joint that can withstand up to a million wing beats without cracking or becoming brittle.
- The resilin joint enables bumblebees to take off despite their heavy body.
- Even fleas have Resilin in the hind legs. With them it serves as a short-term energy store, as muscles are not able to contract quickly enough.
Stanislav Gorb from the Max Planck Institute for Materials Research carried out studies on the technical properties of resilin a few years ago.
Human medicine has long wanted such a super rubber . But only recently (2005) has Australian researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in St. Lucia succeeded in artificially creating the substance. Whether the substance can actually be used will mainly depend on the rejection reactions of the human organism.
The substance was discovered in insects by Torkel Weis-Fogh in the 1950s .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Entry on Resilin. In: Römpp Online . Georg Thieme Verlag, accessed on June 13, 2014.
- ↑ Qizhi Chen, George Thouas: Biomaterials: A Basic Introduction . CRC Press, Boca Raton 2014, ISBN 978-1-4822-2769-7 , pp. 360 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Physics: Bumblebees cannot fly. (No longer available online.) In: aktion-hummelschutz.de. Cornel van Bebber, archived from the original on May 6, 2016 ; accessed on May 6, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Insects provide new human implant material. In: pressetext.com. October 13, 2005, accessed May 31, 2017 .
literature
- Christopher M. Elvin, Andrew G. Carr, Mickey G. Huson, Jane M. Maxwell, Roger D. Pearson, Tony Vuocolo, Nancy E. Liyou, Darren CC Wong, David J. Merritt, Nicholas E. Dixon: Synthesis and properties of crosslinked recombinant pro-resilin . In: Nature . tape 437 , no. 7061 , October 2005, p. 999-1002 , doi : 10.1038 / nature04085 , PMID 16222249 .
- Walter Frese, Stanislav Gorb , Uli Schwarz : What makes dragonflies into flight artists. In: Spectrum of Science . No. 7, July 2000, p. 12.