Abstract
Spider silk fibers have a sophisticated hierarchical structure composed of proteins with highly repetitive sequences. Their extraordinary mechanical properties, defined by a unique combination of strength and extensibility, are superior to most man-made fibers. Therefore, spider silk has fascinated mankind for thousands of years. However, due to their aggressive territorial behavior, farming of spiders is not feasible on a large scale. For this reason, biotechnological approaches were recently developed for the production of recombinant spider silk proteins. These recombinant proteins can be assembled into a variety of morphologies with a great range of properties for technical and medical applications. Here, the different approaches of biotechnological production and the advances in material processing toward various applications will be reviewed.
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References
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Acknowledgments
We kindly thank Elise DeSimone for proofreading the manuscript. A.H. kindly appreciates the financial support by the “Universität Bayern, e.V., Graduiertenförderung nach dem bayerischen Eliteförderungsgesetz.” This work was financially supported by DFG grant SFB 840 TP A8 (to T.S.), DFG SCHE 603/4, and the Technologie Allianz Oberfranken (TAO).
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Elena Doblhofer and Aniela Heidebrecht contributed equally to this work.
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Doblhofer, E., Heidebrecht, A. & Scheibel, T. To spin or not to spin: spider silk fibers and more. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 9361–9380 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6948-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6948-8