Figure 5.

(A) Scheme showing the putative mechanism of eADF4(C16) hydrogel formation. (a) Chemical modification of spider silk protein with, e.g., fluorescein influences the packing of self-assembling spider silk nanofibrils. (b) The nonspecific fluorescein-coupling to tyrosine residues lowers the efficiency of chemical crosslinking of the self-assembled nanofibrils (c) In the absence of fluorescein, tightly packed eADF4(C16) hydrogels are formed. Images of the hydrogel and microscopical SEM images of (B) non-crosslinked and (C) crosslinked eADF4(C16) hydrogels in the presence of 70 mg/mL fluorescein. Adopted and modified with permission [67]. Copyright 2011, American Chemical Society.