This touches on a basic problem with tanning of cuticle - that the protein is
so well stabilised (by whatever means) that it's difficult to break it down
and look at the bits.
Can I suggest you try an different approach - controlling the orientation of
the chitin? Charlie Neville, about 40 years ago, showed that the orientation
of the chitin in the leg of the locust is controlled by a dermal light sense.
He painted one leg of a locust black, the other was left unpainted. He then
reared the insect in constant low light (the paint wasn't totally opaque).
The painted leg laid down chitin with parallel fibres orientated along the
leg, the unpainted one laid down helicoidal chitin. We tried this once, and
you can pick up mechanical differences. The stiffness difference between the
two legs, measured along the leg should, according to composite theory, be
about 3:1. Siffness differences in other directions will probably be
greater. Probably the greatest difference will be seen in torsion.
Julian Vincent
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Hello, I am interested in how leg stiffness effects the locomotion of
> cockroaches. I'd like to selectively reduce the stiffness of parts of
> roach legs by breaking the protein crosslinks in the cuticle. Does anyone
> know of a way to do this? Are there ways of breaking quinone links and
> disulphide bridges without otherwise harming the insect. Any references
> or links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dan Dudek
>
> Daniel M. Dudek
> Graduate Student
> Department of Integrative Biology
> University of California at Berkeley
> 3060 Valley Life Sciences Building
> Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
> email: [log in to unmask]
> phone: (510) 643-5183
> fax: (510) 643-6264
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