Abstract
The spider silk fibers have unique high performance properties that make it a desirable model for artificial fibers and its performance under benign conditions has important implications for biomimicry. It has tensile strengths comparable to steel and some are nearly as elastic as rubber on a weight to weight basis. The spider spins its silk at ambient temperatures, low pressures and with water as solvent. Spiders are ectotherms and the ambient temperature affects the spinning speed and the mechanical and structural properties of the silk spun. The high cytocompatibility and low immunogenicity of spider silk fibers make them well suited for biomaterial products such as nerve conduits. Spider silk proteins have been shown to be soluble in ionic liquids, thus once soluble, they can be processed into new biomaterials such as films, gels, porous sponges, bone tissue engineering. The spider silk chains with a fixed molecular weight decreases exponentially with the UV irradiation time, since UV irradiation causes the chemical bonds in the protein chains to undergo cleavage. This paper reviews related literature on the spider silk spinning process, conditions and their effects on structure, mechanical properties of spider silk and its resistance to UV degradation. As a bonus, a brief review of the biotechnological production of recombinant spider silk us presented.
Highlights
Spider silk has captured the interest of scientist for a long period, largely due to the unrivaled visual and functional properties of silk fiber and the unique structures that have been generated by various silk-producing species in nature
Taking the example of the dragline silk that has high strength characteristic, we look at the structure of the ampullate gland that secretes it
Spider silk porous films made of pNSR-16 and pNSR-32 can be used to cover second-degree burn wounds (inflicted with 90 °C boiling water (Salehi et al, 2020), through tissue engineering processes aimed at encouraging tissue regeneration, i.e., the renewal and regrowth of tissues (Selahi et al, 2020)
Summary
Spider silk has captured the interest of scientist for a long period, largely due to the unrivaled visual and functional properties of silk fiber and the unique structures that have been generated by various silk-producing species in nature. These structures include orb web structures spun to capture prey, cocoons to house offspring, adhesives used to anchor webs and fibrous tethers to capture flying prey (Kluge et al, 2008). Gatwiri Jane and Kamweru Paul Kuria / Afr.J.Bio.Sc. 3(4) (2021) 1-16 hypoallergenic and completely biodegradable (Römer and Scheibel, 2008) It is regarded as one of the best natural polymer fibers especially in terms of low density, high tensile strength and high elongation until breaking (Lepore et al, 2016). With recombinant production technologies it is possible to create tailor-made silk-based biopolymers for many different purposes on a large scale within a relatively short amount of time
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