Spider dragline silk is Nature’s high-performance fiber that outperforms the best man-made materials by displaying extraordinary mechanical properties. In addition, spider silk is biocompatible and biodegradable, which makes it suitable as a model for biomaterial production. Dragline silk consists of large structural proteins (spidroins) comprising an extensive region of poly-alanine/glycine-ri...

Based on the natural sequence of Araneus diadematus Fibroin 4 (ADF4), the recombinant spider silk protein eADF4(C16) has been engineered. This highly repetitive protein has a molecular weight of 48kDa and is soluble in different solvents (hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP), formic acid and aqueous buffers). eADF4(C16) provides a high potential for various technical applications when processed into mo...

Silica skeletal architectures in diatoms are characterized by remarkable morphological and nanostructural details. Silk proteins from spiders and silkworms form strong and intricate self-assembling fibrous biomaterials in nature. We combined the features of silk with biosilica through the design, synthesis, and characterization of a novel family of chimeric proteins for subsequent use in model ...

Silk fibroin can be made into various forms of biocompatible medical materials, including hydrogel due to its excellent properties. Here, we report a novel method for the preparation of electropolymerized silk fibroin hydrogel membrane (ESFHM), which is formed on a nanoporous film as a barrier using a homemade device at a higher DC voltage. Regenerated silk fibroin solution in Tris buffer (pH 6...

In the silkworm Bombyx mori, three fibroin genes, fibroin-heavy-chain (fibH), fibroin-light-chain (fibL) and fibrohexamerin (fhx), are coexpressed only in the posterior silk gland (PSG) cells, while the sericin genes encoding silk glue proteins are expressed in the middle silk gland (MSG) cells. Silk gland factor-2 (SGF-2) is a PSG-specific activator complex of fibH, composed of a LIM-homeodoma...

The lack of a fibrocartilage layer between graft and bone remains the leading cause of graft failure after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. The objective of this study was to develop a gene-modified silk cable-reinforced chondroitin sulfate-hyaluronate acid-silk fibroin (CHS) hybrid scaffold for reconstructing the fibrocartilage layer. The scaffold was fabricated by lyophilizing...

Despite the enormous potential in bioinspired fabrication of high-strength structure by mimicking the spinning process of spider silk, currently accessible routes (e.g., microfluidic and electrospinning approaches) still have substantial function gaps in providing precision control over the nanofibrillar superstructure, crystalline morphology or molecular orientation. Here the concept of biomim...

Spider major ampullate silk is a high-performance biomaterial that has received much attention. However, most studies ignore plasticity in silk properties. A better understanding of silk plasticity could clarify the relative importance of chemical composition versus processing of silk dope for silk properties. It could also provide insight into how control of silk properties relates to spider e...

Three protein binding sites have been identified in the upstream region of the sericin-1 gene. Two of them, SA and SC sites, have been known as putative cis-acting elements. Using synthetic oligonucleotides of these binding sites, it was found that silk gland factor-1 (SGF-1) binds to the SA site, and silk gland factor-3 (SGF-3) binds to the SC site but not to a mutated SC site, SCM. Tissue dis...