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Spider silk structure: crystalline beta-sheets separated by amorphous linkages. Silks have a hierarchical structure. The primary structure is the amino acid sequence of its proteins (), mainly consisting of highly repetitive glycine and alanine blocks, [4] [5] which is why silks are often referred to as a block co-polymer.
In the last decade, much research has been done about spidroin protein and spider silk in order to take advantage of some of its properties, such as its elasticity and strength. Spider silk is used in different industries, and its range of applications in biomedicine is increasing every day.
The length of the silk fiber depends on how it has been prepared. Since the cocoon is made of one strand, if the cocoon is unwound carefully the fibers can be very long. Spider silk is the strongest natural fiber known. The strongest dragline silk is five times stronger than steel and three times tougher than Kevlar.
The spider silk has a greater tensile strength than steel, and the material is even strong enough to stop a bullet. In terms of everyday usage, spider silk could be a huge game changer when it ...
However, this highly valuable silk type is very difficult to create through artificial means. [13] Since spider silk has a variety of potential uses, including in fabrics and biomedical technologies, the sequence motifs for genes coding for this silk in the species have been studied to examine the potential for artificial production. In the ...
Spider silk may also make fine sutures for stitching nerves or eyes to heal with little scarring. Medical uses of spider silk have been introduced previously. Spider silks have been used for centuries to fight infection and heal wounds. Efforts to produce industrial quantities and qualities of spider silk in transgenic goat milk are underway ...
Kim Kraig Thompson, a retired lawyer, invented the protein expression platform in 2002, which would become the basis for Kraig Lab's work with spider silk. [3] He founded Kraig Biocraft Laboratories in April 2006 to develop and commercialize spider silks and other high-performance polymers gene and sequences using platform technology in combination with genetic engineering concepts.
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