Spiders in the superfamily Araneoidea produce viscous glue from aggregate silk glands. Aggregate glue coats prey-capture threads and hampers the escape of prey from webs, thereby increasing the foraging success of spiders. cDNAs for Aggregate Spider Glue 1 (ASG1) and 2 (ASG2) have been previously described from the golden orb-weaver, Nephila clavipes, and Western black widow, Latrodectus hesper...

Spider silk proteins (fibroins) are renowned for their extraordinary mechanical properties and biomimetic potential. Despite extensive evolutionary, ecological, and industrial interest in these fibroins, only a fraction of the known silk types have been characterized at the molecular level. Here we report cDNA and genomic sequences of the fibroin TuSp1, which appears to be the major component o...

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are considered to be ideal multifunctional materials for biorelated applications, but there is still some controversy regarding their toxicity. In addition, the poor dispersibility of MWCNTs in either water or organic solvents has limited their practical applications. Therefore, obtaining a good dispersion is one of the key issues in their applications. In ...

Introduction Past experiments have already proven that silk, a natural protein produced by silkworms and spiders, exhibit intriguing physical properties such as exceptionally high moduli and toughness. Silk fibroins (SF) can be further reconstituted into ultrathin (<100 nm) films while retaining most of these properties for a wide variety of bioapplications. These ultrathin films can be further...

The synthesis of the hexanucleotide d)A-C-C-A-G-C), complementary to the 2 major triplets of fibroin mRNA, using the phosphotriester methodology is described. The protected dinucleotides ((MeO)2Tr)dbzA.anC, ((MeO)2Tr)danC.bzA and ((meO)2Tr)dacG.anC were synthesized; the latter two were detritylated and joined in stepwize fashion to the 1st to form the protected hexanucleotide ((MeO)2Tr)dbzA.anC...

Silk scaffolds having biomimetic hierarchical porous structures were achieved by carefully tuning liquid-liquid separation in regenerated silk fibroin solutions. Such scaffolds show greatly enhanced cellular responses.

Human adult skeletal muscle has a limited ability to regenerate after injury and therapeutic options for volumetric muscle loss are few. Technologies to enhance regeneration of tissues generally rely upon bioscaffolds to mimic aspects of the tissue extracellular matrix (ECM). In the present study, silk fibroins from four Lepidoptera (silkworm) species engineered into three-dimensional scaffolds...