The gospel of the textile technology industry is the birth of "artificial spider silk"!

Source：/en Release date： 2022-11-11

In nature, spider silk is a magical material that can be used to create strong fabrics. So, why hasn't anyone thought of building a 'spider silk breeding farm'? Perhaps spiders are too difficult to "cooperate", as it has been difficult for humans to achieve it before.

Technological development · Artificial spider silk

To solve this problem, many laboratories have tried artificial spider silk and even considered transferring spider DNA into silkworms.

The good news is that after unremitting efforts, scientists have finally created a new machine, bringing us one step closer to the future of textile materials.

The secret technique of this spider is to secrete a protein solution through a narrow tube, and when it passes through the tube, pressure will bind it together to produce spider silk fibers.

Advantages and limitations

According to a recent research report published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, researchers have designed a similar machine that can bind two natural spider silk proteins.

With the help of this machine, researchers have produced the strongest artificial spider silk to date. Its characteristics are almost identical to real spider silk, biodegradable, and the manufacturing cost is quite low.

The method of extracting silk fibers through sericulture for thousands of years is expected to be changed in the future.

However, the progress made today does not mean that it can be quickly put into mass production, as only one machine has been built and scientists have only spun about 1 kilometer of material. Therefore, large-scale production still needs to wait.

Researchers from the Brazilian Institute of Genetic Resources and Biotechnology have recently successfully produced artificial spider silk in the laboratory, which they believe is a research achievement with high commercial application value.

According to the researchers of the project, the spider silk protein required for the experiment was synthesized in the laboratory using Escherichia coli.

Researchers dilute Escherichia coli in a liquid medium to synthesize spider silk proteins with specific DNA sequences, and then use a special syringe to obtain protein fibers.

The diameter of artificial spider silk made by this method is about 40 nanometers, which is 10 to 20 times thicker than natural spider silk. In the future, researchers will also test the extensibility and toughness of this artificial spider silk.

The biotechnology personnel in charge of this experimental project, Aribio, said that this artificial spider silk not only has the advantages of good elasticity and toughness, but also can be biodegraded, and is expected to be applied in fields such as textile materials, medical care, and aircraft and ship manufacturing in the future.

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