Thermoplastic elastomers protein based

Nagapudi K., Brinkman W.T., Leisen, J., Thomas B.S., Wright E.R., HaUer C., Wu X., Apkarian R.P., ConticeUo V.P., and Chaikof EU. Protein-based thermoplastic elastomers. Macromolecules, 38, 345, 2005. Petka W.A., Hardin J.L., McGrath K.P., Wirtz D., and TirreU, D.A. Reversible hydrogels from self-assembUng artificial proteins. Science, 281, 389, 1998. 

Another, promising avenue to understand silk protein conformation and assembly is the use of model peptides. Although not recent (Fraser and MacRae, 1973 Lotz et al., 1974), studies of silk-based peptide from chemical synthesis, DNA recombinant technology, and computer simulation (Anderson et al., 1994 Asakura et al., 2003 Fahnestock et al., 2000 Fossey et al., 1991 Heslot, 1998 Kaplan, 1998 Wilson et al., 2000) have shown that selected repeats of silk proteins can be transformable hydrogels, elastomers, or regular thermoplastics and that with a proper design they can function as diverse molecular machines (Altman et al., 2003 Heslot, 1998 Kaplan, 1998 Urry, 1998). 

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