Abstract

Spiders can spin seven different types of silk, some of which are well characterized, but studies on natural and synthetic pyriform silks are few. In this study, recombinant spidroins composed of one to three pyriform repeat units from Araneus ventricosus, in some cases flanked with non-repetitive N- and C-terminal domains (NT and CT), were produced and spun into continuous silk fibers using a wet-spinning process in organic solvents. All the fibers showed high and similar tensile strain (60-80%), but the Young's modulus, stress and toughness of fibers increased with increasing number of repeat units and in the presence of NT and CT as well. Systematic studies of the secondary structure contents of the different spinning dopes and spun fibers revealed no major differences between the different types of recombinant spidroins. This suggests that optimal tensile properties of artificial spider silks require the presence of several repetitive units as well as terminal domains and that secondary structure content of silk dope and fibers have limited correlation with mechanical behaviors. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Recombinant pyriform spidroin; Wet-spinning; Synthetic spider silk; Tensile properties

Published in

International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
2020, Volume: 154, pages: 765-772
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Rising, Anna

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Karolinska Institute

UKÄ Subject classification

Bio Materials


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.03.042

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/105875