Eco-Friendly Spider Silk Production
The silk of the humble spider comes with some pretty impressive properties. It’s one of the hardest materials found in nature, stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar. It is possible to stretch it several times its length before it breaks. For these reasons, replicating spider silk in the lab has been a bit of an experimentation among materials scientists for decades. Spider silk contains protein fibers secreted by glands in the abdominal (or rear) part of spiders. The raw material of silk actually contains a liquid protein that passes through the spinnerets (silk-spinning organs). It is dry as it comes out from the abdomen of the spider’s body, and builds a thread. According to the leaders in spider silk research spidroins are proteins that build the majority of spider silk fibers. The spidroins are usually large proteins with repetitive sequences (Garb et al., 2010). The repetitive sequences form the toughness of the fibers. Different types of silk typically have various r...