Also: spidroin, dragline silk, recombinant spider silk
Spider dragline silk is famous for combining strength and toughness. Spiders cannot be farmed like silkworms, so researchers produce spider silk proteins (spidroins) in microbes and spin them into artificial fibres.
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Hypotheses linking the sequence, structure and mechanical properties of spider silk proteins.
As reported in: Hayashi, Shipley, Lewis (1999). Hypotheses that correlate the sequence, structure, and mechanical properties of spider silk proteins. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. doi:10.1016/s0141-8130(98)00089-0
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Lazaris and colleagues produced soluble dragline silk proteins of two spider species in mammalian cells and spun them into fibres with toughness and stiffness comparable to native dragline silk, though with lower tenacity.
Built / tested: silk fibres
As reported in: Lazaris, Arcidiacono, Huang et al. (2002). Spider Silk Fibers Spun from Soluble Recombinant Silk Produced in Mammalian Cells. Science. doi:10.1126/science.1065780
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Bowen and colleagues made very large (556 kDa) recombinant spidroins with 192 repeat motifs; fibres spun from them were the first to match natural spider silk on strength (1.03 GPa), stiffness, stretch and toughness.
Built / tested: silk fibres
As reported in: Bowen, Dai, Sargent et al. (2018). Recombinant Spidroins Fully Replicate Primary Mechanical Properties of Natural Spider Silk. Biomacromolecules. doi:10.1021/acs.biomac.8b00980
Produced native-sized recombinant spider silk protein in metabolically engineered E. coli and spun it into a strong fibre.
Built / tested: silk fibres
As reported in: Xia, Qian, Ki et al. (2010). Native-sized recombinant spider silk protein produced in metabolically engineered Escherichia coli results in a strong fiber. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003366107
A protocol for producing recombinant spider silk-like proteins for artificial fibre spinning.
Built / tested: artificial fibres
As reported in: Teulé, Cooper, Furin et al. (2009). A protocol for the production of recombinant spider silk-like proteins for artificial fiber spinning. Nature Protocols. doi:10.1038/nprot.2008.250
Reported full-length spider dragline silk gene sequences as a blueprint for a high-performance biomaterial.
As reported in: Ayoub, Garb, Tinghitella et al. (2007). Blueprint for a High-Performance Biomaterial: Full-Length Spider Dragline Silk Genes. PLoS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000514
Biomimetic fibres made of recombinant spidroins with the same toughness as natural spider silk.
Built / tested: biomimetic fibres
As reported in: Heidebrecht, Eisoldt, Diehl et al. (2015). Biomimetic Fibers Made of Recombinant Spidroins with the Same Toughness as Natural Spider Silk. Advanced Materials. doi:10.1002/adma.201404234
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