Cement Proteins of the Tube-building Polychaete Phragmatopoma Californica

The mineralized tube of the sandcastle worm Phragmatopoma californica is made from exogenous mineral particles (sand, shell, etc.) glued together with a cement secreted from the "building organ" on the thorax of the worm. The glue is a cross-linked mixture of three highly polar proteins. The complete sequences of Pc-1 (18 kDa) and Pc-2 (21 kDa) were deduced from cDNAs derived from previously reported peptide sequences (Waite, J. H., Jensen, R., and Morse, D. E. (1992) Biochemistry 31, 5733-5738). Both proteins are basic (pI approximately 10) and exhibit Gly-rich peptide repeats. The consensus repeats in Pc-1 and -2 are VGGYGYGGKK (15 times), and HPAVXHKALGGYG (eight times), respectively, in which X denotes an intervening nonrepeated sequence and Y is modified to 3,4-dihydroxyphenyl-l-alanine (Dopa). The third protein, Pc-3, was deduced from the cement to be about 80 mol % phosphoserine/serine, and the cDNA was obtained by exploiting the presence of poly-serine repeats. Pc-3 consists of a family of at least seven variants with 60-90 mol % serine most of which is phosphorylated in the cement. Pc-1, -2, and -3 contain cysteine some of which reacts to form 5-S-cysteinyl-Dopa cross-links during the setting process.