Dc. Gowda et al., SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE HUMAN ELASTIN W4 SEQUENCE, International journal of peptide & protein research, 46(6), 1995, pp. 453-463
Following the nomenclature of Sandberg, the W4 sequence of human elast
in, LVPGGPGFGPGVVGVP- GAGVPGVGVPGAGIPVVPGAGIPGAGVPGVVSPEG, has been sy
nthesized by solid-phase methods and characterized by carbon-13 nuclea
r magnetic resonance, amino-acid analysis, mass spectra and elemental
analysis. This sequence was then polymerized to greater than 50 kDa as
determined by retention in 50 kDa molecular weight cut-off dialysis t
ubing. It has been successfully cross-linked by gamma-irradiation (20
Mrad) to form an elastomeric matrix, designated as X(20)-poly(W4). Phy
sical characterizations such as stress/strain, thermoelasticity, acid-
base titration and inverse temperature transition studies have been ca
rried out on this elastomer, which is homologous to the striking, poly
(VPGVG), W4 sequence of bovine and porcine elastins. These results are
compared with previous results on the polypentapeptide of elastin, (V
PGVG),, and it has been demonstrated that X(20)-poly(W4) also is a dom
inantly entropic elastomer. Finally, the working model for the structu
re of this human elastin sequence was derived computationally using mo
lecular mechanics and dynamics calculations. Thus the human W4 sequenc
e appears to be structurally and functionally equivalent to the bovine
and porcine W4 sequences in spite of the less regular repeating penta
mer sequence. (C) Munksgaard 1995.