Abstract
Adhesive secretions occur in both aquatic and terrestrial animals, in which they perform diverse functions. Biological adhesives can therefore be remarkably complex and involve a large range of components with different functions and interactions. However, being mainly protein based, biological adhesives can be characterized by classical molecular methods. This review compiles experimental strategies that were successfully used to identify, characterize and obtain the full-length sequence of adhesive proteins from nine biological models: echinoderms, barnacles, tubeworms, mussels, sticklebacks, slugs, velvet worms, spiders and ticks. A brief description and practical examples are given for a variety of tools used to study adhesive molecules at different levels from genes to secreted proteins. In most studies, proteins, extracted from secreted materials or from adhesive organs, are analysed for the presence of post-translational modifications and submitted to peptide sequencing. The peptide sequences are then used directly for a BLAST search in genomic or transcriptomic databases, or to design degenerate primers to perform RT-PCR, both allowing the recovery of the sequence of the cDNA coding for the investigated protein. These sequences can then be used for functional validation and recombinant production. In recent years, the dual proteomic and transcriptomic approach has emerged as the best way leading to the identification of novel adhesive proteins and retrieval of their complete sequences.
Highlights
Biological attachment systems can be subdivided into several groups according to the fundamental physical mechanisms underlying their operation [1]
Many metazoans rely on adhesive secretions to perform diverse functions
The diversity of biological adhesives is huge and they can involve a large range of components with different functions and interactions
Summary
Biological attachment systems can be subdivided into several groups according to the fundamental physical mechanisms underlying their operation [1]. Adhesives present several advantages compared to other attachment systems: (i) they are versatile, being able to bind surfaces with various chemistry and roughness, (ii) they can join dissimilar materials, and (iii) they show improved stress distribution in the joint [3]. This is why adhesive systems are ubiquitous in nature, being found in bacteria, fungi, protists, plants and animals. In recent years, an increasing number of reports have been published on the characterization of biological adhesives [4,5,6]. The aim of this review is to compile a list of the molecular methods that have been used to identify and characterize adhesive proteins in multicellular eukaryotic organisms (i.e. metazoans)
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