Fig. 2

Alignment of Nephila clavipes C-terminal sequences representing characterized silk types, with predicted helical secondary structure of MaSp-a below. Amino acid residues implicated in the formation of a salt bridge are marked A (acidic residue; glutamic or aspartic acid) and found within region B (basic residue; arginine or lysine). Residues are highlighted to show whether acidic (red), basic (blue), hydrophilic (green) or hydrophobic (yellow)