Figure 2: Polymer network structures for the HAB3, H(AB)2 and HA3B sequences. | Nature Communications

Figure 2: Polymer network structures for the HAB3, H(AB)2 and HA3B sequences.

From: Predictive modelling-based design and experiments for synthesis and spinning of bioinspired silk fibres

Figure 2

(a) Polymer network analysis leads to the node–bridge diagram of the three peptide sequences before and after shear flow (all correspond to the simulation snapshots in Fig. 1). Only the H(AB)2 sequence exhibit weak network connectivity, whereas the other two sequences do not form any network. Time evolution of the simulated polymer network properties during equilibration and shear flow: (b) median number of ‘a’ beads per node as a measure of the aggregate size and (c) the total number of bridges as a measure of the connectivity. The median size of each aggregate or cluster (b) is increased during the shear flow and the trend is consistent with Fig. 1, while the total number of bridges (c) is reduced for H(AB)2 during the shear flow and remains zero for both HAB3 and HA3B. These results clearly show the advantage of the H(AB)2 sequence with the intermediate ‘A’–‘B’ domain ratio to form connected polymer networks (highlighted by the red rectangle).

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