Fig. 1.

Mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) attached to substratum by a byssus. The major load-bearing macromolecules in the byssus are the collagen-containing proteins (preCols) and models of their assembly in the byssus are caricatured. (A) Each preCol consists of a rigid, kinked collagen region flanked by compliant domains with histidine-rich regions at the N- and C-terminus. (B) The organization of smectic preCols as modeled in Waite et al. (Waite et al., 2004; Waite et al., 2002). (C) The smectic register is a local one and not in lateral register with other fibrils. Circled portion indicates neighboring non-aligned preCOL sequences. (D) Smectic fibrils separated and lubricated by a matrix protein.