Artificial spider silk spun from microfluidic device

The artificial silk gland was able to recreate the complex molecular structure of silk by mimicking chemical and physical changes that naturally occur in a spider’s silk gland.

The team, led by Keiji Numata at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science and colleagues from the RIKEN Pioneering Research Cluster, has published its findings in Nature Communications.

Numerous attempts have been made to replicate spider silk to exploit its properties, such as tensile strength comparable to steel of the same diameter, unparalleled strength-to-weight ratio, biocompatibility and biodegradability.

Spider silk is a biopolymer fibre made from large proteins with highly repetitive sequences, called spidroins. Within the silk fibres are molecular substructures (beta sheets), which must be aligned properly for the silk fibres to have their unique mechanical properties.

In a statement, Numata said: “In this study, we attempted to mimic natural spider silk production using microfluidics, which involves the flow and manipulation of small amounts of fluids through narrow channels. Indeed, one could say that the spider’s silk gland functions as a sort of natural microfluidic device.”