One of the fundamental mysteries of spider silk that has limited scientists\u2019 ability to produce artificial silks of the quality of natural silks has just been explained by researchers in ASU\u2019s School of Molecular Sciences in collaboration with a team from San Diego State University and Northwestern University.<\/p>\n
Their results, published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), are in a paper titled \u201cHierarchical spidroin micellar nanoparticles as the fundamental precursors of spider silks.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Spider silk has a unique combination of mechanical strength and elasticity that make it one of the toughest materials we know,” said Jeff Yarger, professor in the School of Molecular Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n
Spider silk is an exceptional biological polymer, related to collagen (the stuff of skin and bones) but much more complex in its structure. The ASU team of chemists is studying its molecular structure in an effort to produce materials for uses ranging from civil and mechanical engineering to artificial, yet biocompatible, tendons.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s familiar with silk, because they\u2019re familiar with silkworm silk. The silk trade has been around for a long time. But spider silk has a much larger variety in its properties,\u201d Yarger explained.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, spiders don\u2019t produce silk in large quantities. \u201cYou can put lots of silkworms in a small area and genetically modify them to go from the larval state to a moth in 20 to 30 days. Spiders take longer. But let\u2019s get to the crux of it \u2014 spiders don\u2019t like each other. They eat each other,\u201d Yarger said. This, of course, eliminates the possibility of farming them en masse.<\/p>\n
Scientists have come up with ingenious ways to get around this problem. They have genetically engineered silkworms,\u00a0E. coli\u00a0and even goats to produce spider silk. Unfortunately, while these organisms produce the same proteins that spiders make, they don\u2019t have the same mechanical properties as the natural product. They aren\u2019t as strong, for instance, or as flexible.<\/p>\n
This is where the current research comes in \u2014 Yarger was joined by Dian Xu, Samrat Amin and Brian Cherry, all from ASU; Gregory Holland, associate professor of chemistry from San Diego State University; and Nathan Gianneschi, professor of chemistry from Northwestern University.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a matter of milliseconds, a spider can take a concentrated protein solution stored in its abdomen and pull this material rapidly through ducting and spinnerets to produce silk fibers,\u201d Yarger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstanding at the molecular level how spiders perform this complex process, and reproducing it in the lab, is the primary research objective within our group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team employed a suite of magnetic resonance tools \u2014 NMR (or MRI) at ASU and San Diego State as well as cryo transmission electron microscopy at Northwestern University. They studied the precursor solution of the dragline silk of local black widow (or\u00a0Latrodectus hesperus) spiders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now a step closer to a molecular understanding of this process,\u201d Yarger said. \u201cWe have discovered a hierarchical micellar nanoparticle structure based on the molecular organization of the proteins stored in the abdomen of spiders. This has led us to the first molecular-level model of spider silk protein fiber formation and hopefully one step closer to lab production of spider silk protein fiber.\u201d<\/p>\n
This research was primarily funded by grants from the Department of Defense, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation (Division of Materials Research, Biomaterials) and ASU (Magnetic Resonance Research Center).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the fundamental mysteries of spider silk that has limited scientists\u2019 ability to produce artificial silks of the quality of natural silks has just been explained by researchers in ASU\u2019s School of Molecular Sciences in collaboration with a team from San Diego State University and Northwestern University. Their results, published online today in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5817,13831],"supplier":[541,3930,14943],"class_list":["post-57914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-research","tag-spidersilk","supplier-arizona-state-university","supplier-northwestern-university","supplier-san-diego-state-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57914"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=57914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}