Molecular Design and Biosynthesis of Polypeptides Inspired by Spider Silk Spinning

Structural protein is one of the key factors to realize the unique properties and functions of natural tissues and organisms. However, use of structural proteins as structural materials in human life is still challenging. One of the major drawbacks of protein/polypeptide-based materials is their limited synthesis/process method. My research group has successfully synthesized various polypeptides, such as spider silk protein-like and elastin-like multiblock polypeptides, even with unnatural amino acids or nylon units, via chemoenzymatic polymerization. Those artificial polypeptides containing unnatural units achieve several properties that cannot be done by natural polypeptides. These synthetic polypeptides with nylon units are highly biodegradable and less environmentally toxic. Thus, this enzyme-mediated polymerization of amino acid monomers provides a new insight for material design of polypeptide. My research group also reported the new finding in spider silk spinning, which is essential to clear the hierarchical structure of spider silk. The scalable and sustainable synthesis method along the clarified structure-function relationship of natural proteins provides a new insight for structural and functional material design of amino acids-based polymers.