Hyperexpression of bioelastic polypeptides

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and compositions for synthesizing elastomeric materials in large quantities.
It is a further object of the invention to provide cells expressing elastomeric materials.
According to the present invention, the foregoing and other objects are obtained by introducing into a host cell, a vector comprising a promoter operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a bioelastic polypeptide comprising pentapeptide, tetrapeptide, hexapeptide or nonapeptide repeating units and growing the host cell to provide for expression of the polypeptide as at least 40% of the total cellular protein.
The bioelastic polymer can optionally include non-bioelastic sequences ranging from single amino acid insertions to fusions with unrelated peptides.
The fusion junction may be interrupted by a linker region providing for a cleavage site or merely reducing or eliminating steric hinderances between the bioelastomer and the peptide fused thereto.
The bioelastic polymer can be expressed in prokaryotic systems, e.
g.
, Escherichia coli or eukaryotic systems, e.
g.
, yeast, plants or mammalian cells.