Elasticity is a key requirement for extensible tissues in vertebrates as they undergo many millions of repetitive stretching–recovery cycles. 1 Such tissues include skin, lungs, blood vessels, heart valves and ligaments, amongst others. 2 This elasticity is provided by elastic fibers created in a process called elastogenesis, 3–5 which mainly occurs during the first few years of life. These elastic fibers comprise elastin, a protein that becomes insoluble due to its high degree of crosslinking, thus making it extremely durable and metabolically stable throughout the host’s life. 6 Elastin is formed by the union and crosslinking of soluble monomers called tropoelastin, which is secreted by specific elastogenic cells as a 60 kDa monomer. 1 Tropoelastin is characterized by the presence of a high number of hydrophobic domains formed by apolar amino acids. Lysine-rich regions can be found interspersed between these hydrophobic domains. 7 These lysine-rich domains play a crucial role in crosslinking of the tropoelastin monomer to produce the mature elastin