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Theagarten Lingham-Soliar
Theagarten Lingham-Soliar
Department of Zoology, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth,
South Africa
Publications
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Review Article
How Microbes helped solve a Complex Biomechanical Problem associated with Bird Flight
Author(s): Theagarten Lingham-SoliarTheagarten Lingham-Soliar
Bird feathers are made of the toughest natural elastomeric biopolymer, β-keratin. The almost inextricable bond between the fibre and matrix texture of β-keratin has made it virtually impossible to ascertain a fibre hierarchy in the main support structures of the feather, the rachis and barbs, other than filaments nanometres in diameter thick. To circumvent the limits of conventional structure-determination methods microbes were used for the first time to help resolve a biological structural problem. Naturally occurring feather parasites, fungi, were allowed to grow in feathers under laboratory conditions, the hypothesis being that they would preferentially degrade the matrix and release the fibre components. The result was that microbes revealed for the first time the true feather microfiber hierarchy, which included the thickest fibres known in β-keratin by a magnitude.. View More»
DOI: 10.4172/1948-5948.1000282