Comparative Animal Mucomics: Inspiration for Functional Materials from Ubiquitous and Understudied Biopolymers

Abstract

The functions of secreted animal mucuses are remarkably diverse and include lubricants, wet adhesives, protective barriers, and mineralizing agents. Although present in all animals, many open questions related to the hierarchical architectures, material properties, and genetics of mucus remain. Here, we summarize what is known about secreted mucus structure, describe the work of research groups throughout the world who are investigating various animal mucuses, and relate how these studies are revealing new mucus properties and the relationships between mucus hierarchical structure and hydrogel function. Finally, we call for a more systematic approach to studying animal mucuses so that data sets can be compared, omics-style, to address unanswered questions in the emerging field of mucomics. One major result that we anticipate from these efforts is design rules for creating new materials that are inspired by the structures and functions of animal mucuses.

Does Chytridiomycosis Affect Tree Frog Attachment?

“…The conservation of frogs is crucial not only from an ecological perspective, but also because of the relevance of this group of animals in biotechnology and biomimetics. Amphibian mucus is an important source of biomolecules with potential for the development of novel therapeutics [72,73] and functional materials [74]. Tree frog toe pads are a prominent model for the development of biomimetic adhesive surfaces [30] and robotic gripping systems [75].…”

Bio-based and bio-inspired adhesives from animals and plants for biomedical applications

“…The adhesion strategy used by hagfishes ( Myxine glutinosa ) is based on cross-linked networks made from mucin-like glycoproteins and protein filaments. Mucins are large glycoproteins that are ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, where they are involved in a broad range of functions such as providing anti-bacterial/anti-viral barriers, lubricity and tissue hydration [ 231 , 232 ]. The chemical structure of the mucin glycoproteins can be simply described as the protein core domain where serine and threonine residues are connected to branched oligosaccharides through O -glycoside bonds [ 233 ].…”

Advancing Discovery of Snail Mucins Function and Application

“…These mucosal membranes account for a large portion of the surface area of multicellular organisms exposed to the environment. In humans, mucosal membranes account for 99% of the bodies surface area ( Sompayrac, 2012 ; Ma et al, 2018 ; Cerullo, 2020 ). Each snail species secretes multiple distinct functional mucuses.…”

“…In this approach we extract mRNA from mucus glands or whole animal and through a bioinformatic pipeline, identify mucin genes and primary mucin protein sequences. A new initiative, the Comparative Animal Mucomics Project (CAMP) will apply a systematic comparative analyses of mucin genes and mucus hydrogels to determine the hierarchical structures and properties of distinct mucuses ( Cerullo, 2020 ).…”