The black widow spider’s dragline silk is a standout compared to other spider silks because of its superior strength and extensibility, a combination which enables black widow dragline silk to absorb enormous amounts of energy. These properties suggest that synthetically-produced silk might find applications as diverse as lightweight super-strong body armor, components of medical devices and high-tech athletic attire.
The researchers – Associate Professor of Biology Cheryl Hayashi, postdoctoral researchers Nadia Ayoub and Jessica Garb, and graduate students Robin Tinghitella and Matthew Collin – report their findings in the June 13 online edition of the journal PLoS ONE, published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS). In the
article, they describe their work to identify the genes encoding the two key proteins, named MaSp1 and MaSp2, and determine the genes’ complete DNA sequences. The UCR Office of Technology Commercialization has filed a patent application on the gene sequences.
There are currently no products on the market based on the dragline silk of spiders. “There’s nothing quite as good yet as natural dragline silk, but we should get a lot closer now that we have the full genetic recipe,”
Hayashi said.
With the ingredients and their genetic blueprint now known, it may be possible to synthetically produce the proteins by inserting the genetic sequences into host organisms such as bacteria, plants or animals, she said. Once the pure proteins are harvested, a manufacturing challenge will be spinning them into silk fibers that have the same remarkable properties as spider spun silk. But several advances have recently been made in artificial spinning methods.
When spiders manufacture dragline silk, their silk glands produce a “gooey” slurry of the proteins needed, which are transported to the spinneret through a duct where the proteins interact and align to form the silk strands.
“The production of artificial silk is not quite there yet,” Hayashi said. “Now, with the full length genes known and as we learn more about theses two proteins, hopefully we will have a better shot at mimicking nature.”
Spider silks have some of the best mechanical properties of any known natural fibers, thus they are being considered in the improvement of a variety of products including surgical microsutures and specialty ropes. Dragline silk – just one type of the seven different silks that an individual spider produces – are used by spiders as the structural foundation of their webs and to support their body weight as they move about. The dragline silk of black widows is one of the strongest and toughest spider silks identified thus far.
Source: University of California - Riverside
Related stories:
Stretchy spider silks can be springs or rubber
It’s stronger than steel and nylon, and more extensible than Kevlar. So what is this super-tough material? Spider silk; and learning how to spin it is one of the materials industries’ Holy Grails. John Gosline has been fascinated by spider silks and their remarkable toughness for most of his scientific career.
Proteins as Parents
So that we can move, and so that our heart beats, we need proteins with special mechanical properties, "molecular springs", which give our tissues the necessary strength and take care of elasticity and tensibility.
Why spiders' silk threads don't twist
Unlike a mountain climber swinging from a rope, a spider suspended from its silk thread hardly ever twists. Although the flexibility and strength of a spider’s dragline outperforms the best synthetic fibres, surprisingly little has been published on the twist properties of the thread. A new study however, by a research team from Oxford and Rennes Universities, published in
Nature, reveals just how good the damping properties of spider silk are.
Spider silks, the ecological materials of tomorrow?
Spider silks could become the intelligent materials of the future, according to a review article published this month in the journal Microbial Cell Factories. The characteristics of spider silk could have applications in areas ranging from medicine to ballistics.
This becomes possible because Hebrew scientists, for the first time anywhere, have succeeded in producing self-assembled spider web fibres under laboratory conditions, outside of the bodies of spiders.
Protein Fibrils as Alternative Plastics?
Amyloid deposits in tissues and organs are linked to a number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, type II diabetes, and prion diseases such as BSE. However, amyloids are not just pathological substances; they have potential as a nanomaterials.
Synchrotron light unveils oil in ancient Buddhist paintings from Bamiyan
The world was in shock when in 2001 the Talibans destroyed two ancient colossal Buddha statues in the Afghan region of Bamiyan. Behind those statues, there are caves decorated with precious paintings from 5th to 9th century A.D. The caves also suffered from Taliban destruction, as well as from a severe natural environment, but today they have become the source of a major discovery.
Bacteria can be made to spin spider silk
Biological and medical research is on the threshold of a new era based on better understanding of how large organic molecules bind together and recognise each other. There is great potential for exploiting the molecular docking processes that are commonplace in all organisms to develop new drugs that act more specifically without adverse side effects, and construct novel materials by mimicking nature.
Protein's strength lies in h-bond cooperation
Researchers in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT reveal that the strength of a biological material like spider silk lies in the specific geometric configuration of structural proteins, which have small clusters of weak hydrogen bonds that work cooperatively to resist force and dissipate energy.
