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Science 18 October 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5593, p. 491
DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5593.491i
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This Week in Science

The cell walls of diatoms--unicellular algae that are the greatest primary producers of the ocean--are made from intricately patterned biosilica. Highly modified peptides called silaffins, which have been extracted from diatom biosilica, can precipitate nanometer-scale silica spheres under appropriate conditions. Kröger et al. (p. 584; see the Perspective by Wetherbee) now show that extraction under milder conditions preserves the native silaffins, which are highly phosphorylated. The native silaffins form a composite with silica that is likely to play a key role in the in vivo formation of biosilica by diatoms.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)