IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v410y2001i6828d10.1038_35069000.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Liquid crystalline spinning of spider silk

Author

Listed:
  • Fritz Vollrath

    (University of Oxford
    Universitetsparken B135)

  • David P. Knight

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

Spider silk has outstanding mechanical properties despite being spun at close to ambient temperatures and pressures using water as the solvent. The spider achieves this feat of benign fibre processing by judiciously controlling the folding and crystallization of the main protein constituents, and by adding auxiliary compounds, to create a composite material of defined hierarchical structure. Because the ‘spinning dope’ (the material from which silk is spun) is liquid crystalline, spiders can draw it during extrusion into a hardened fibre using minimal forces. This process involves an unusual internal drawdown within the spider's spinneret that is not seen in industrial fibre processing, followed by a conventional external drawdown after the dope has left the spinneret. Successful copying of the spider's internal processing and precise control over protein folding, combined with knowledge of the gene sequences of its spinning dopes, could permit industrial production of silk-based fibres with unique properties under benign conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Fritz Vollrath & David P. Knight, 2001. "Liquid crystalline spinning of spider silk," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6828), pages 541-548, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:410:y:2001:i:6828:d:10.1038_35069000
    DOI: 10.1038/35069000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/35069000
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/35069000?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. D. Eliaz & S. Paul & D. Benyamin & A. Cernescu & S. R. Cohen & I. Rosenhek-Goldian & O. Brookstein & M. E. Miali & A. Solomonov & M. Greenblatt & Y. Levy & U. Raviv & A. Barth & U. Shimanovich, 2022. "Micro and nano-scale compartments guide the structural transition of silk protein monomers into silk fibers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. He, Ji-Huan & Liu, Yong & Xu, Lan & Yu, Jian-Yong & Sun, Gang, 2008. "BioMimic fabrication of electrospun nanofibers with high-throughput," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 643-651.
    3. He, Ji-Huan & Wan, Yu-Qin & Xu, Lan, 2007. "Nano-effects, quantum-like properties in electrospun nanofibers," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 26-37.
    4. Wenbo Hu & Anqiang Jia & Sanyuan Ma & Guoqing Zhang & Zhaoyuan Wei & Fang Lu & Yongjiang Luo & Zhisheng Zhang & Jiahe Sun & Tianfang Yang & TingTing Xia & Qinhui Li & Ting Yao & Jiangyu Zheng & Zijie , 2023. "A molecular atlas reveals the tri-sectional spinning mechanism of spider dragline silk," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, December.
    5. Yongchun Liu & Ke Li & Juanhua Tian & Aiting Gao & Lihua Tian & Hao Su & Shuting Miao & Fei Tao & Hao Ren & Qingmin Yang & Jing Cao & Peng Yang, 2023. "Synthesis of robust underwater glues from common proteins via unfolding-aggregating strategy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Amy Fitzgerald & Will Proud & Ali Kandemir & Richard J. Murphy & David A. Jesson & Richard S. Trask & Ian Hamerton & Marco L. Longana, 2021. "A Life Cycle Engineering Perspective on Biocomposites as a Solution for a Sustainable Recovery," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-25, January.
    7. Qijue Wang & Patrick McArdle & Stephanie L. Wang & Ryan L. Wilmington & Zhen Xing & Alexander Greenwood & Myriam L. Cotten & M. Mumtaz Qazilbash & Hannes C. Schniepp, 2022. "Protein secondary structure in spider silk nanofibrils," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Jianming Chen & Arata Tsuchida & Ali D. Malay & Kousuke Tsuchiya & Hiroyasu Masunaga & Yui Tsuji & Mako Kuzumoto & Kenji Urayama & Hirofumi Shintaku & Keiji Numata, 2024. "Replicating shear-mediated self-assembly of spider silk through microfluidics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Ori Brookstein & Eyal Shimoni & Dror Eliaz & Ifat Kaplan-Ashiri & Itay Carmel & Ulyana Shimanovich, 2024. "Metal ions guide the production of silkworm silk fibers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:410:y:2001:i:6828:d:10.1038_35069000. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.