Rheology of hagfish mucins
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| Session: |
Biorheology |
| Date: |
Thursday - October 16, 2003 |
| Time: |
8:55 |
| Room: |
Grand Station III (Track 2) |
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Abstract
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| The Hagfish is an evolutionary throw-back, a jawless fish that parted company from the phylum Chordate before the appearance of true vertebrates. These relatively simple creatures have evolved a spectacular defence mechanism that involves the generation of large amounts of defensive slime. This complex system is excreted by the hagfish and almost immediately generates a space filling “gel” that is composed of associated mucins with a longer range structure imparted by long keratin-like fibers. Currently little work has been performed on studying the rheology of the slime itself, or the properties of the gelling mucins. Here we present shear rheology for the mucins with respect to concentration and consider the behavior of these glycoproteins in solutions relevant to natural conditions. |
