Marine Keratins

Abstract

Keratins represent the largest subgroup among all intermediate fi lament proteins. These structural proteins are mechanically robust and chemically unreactive. This is due to tight packing of protein chains in the form of alpha-helices or β-sheets into supercoiled polypeptide chains crosslinked with disulphide bonds. This chapter is dedicated to keratins of marine fi sh, birds, reptilian and mammalian origin. Keratin-like biological materials from hagfi sh slime are also discussed.