Engineered Recombinant Hagfish Intermediate Filament Proteins: Unraveling Domain Roles in Synthetic Fiber Formation and Mechanics.

Hagfish intermediate filament (HIF) proteins, consisting of α and γ subunits, have been previously recombinantly expressed, purified, and utilized to form dry fibers with impressive mechanical properties. HIFα and HIFγ consist of three protein domains (N-termini, C-termini, and central rod domain). To begin to understand the structure-function relationship between the protein domains in fiber formation and properties in a synthetic fiber spinning system, we designed recombinant protein constructs with varying combinations of the N-terminus, central rod domain (CRD), and C-terminus for both the α and γ proteins.