Correlational investigation and directed design of spider major ampullate silk structure-function relationship
Abstract
Spiders have evolved silks, such as their dragline silk, which uniquely combine tensile strength andextensibility, making it one of the toughest natural fiber materials on earth known so far. It evensurpasses most man-made materials, like Kevlar, while being sustainable and thus of significance formaterials researchers in this age of global environmental concern. To date a myriad of possible usesfor spider silk have been proposed, from medical applications to the incorporation in textiles, and havereceived a big interest from the general public, research institutes, companies as well as from themilitary. To successfully implement silk into any (bio)technical system, we need an in detailquantitative, correlative and causal understanding of the interplay of different sequence motives andscales, which govern the tuning of the tensile properties. So far, only limited information on selectedsilks from a small number of spider species is available.This project aims to further understand the spider dragline silks structure-function relationship byinvestigating its different hierarchical levels comprehensively and in depth using both a correlative aswell as a design approach. Dragline, also called major ampullate silk, of eight to ten closely relatedspecies will be selected for the investigation of their primary, secondary and quaternary structureusing a wide array of techniques, such as: RNA sequencing, synchrotron based X-ray scattering, nuclearmagnetic resonance (NMR), thermal analysis, electron and force microscopy, as well as static anddynamic tensile testing. The influence of the investigated structures and their interdependence on silktensile properties will be analyzed with a regression model. Hence, this project will be the first toobtain data of sufficient resolution to develop a predictive model, which can estimate the impact ofchanges in elementary building blocks on the molecular level on tensile properties at the macroscopicscale. In parallel, in the macroscopic regime a husbandry of genetically editable spiders will beestablished, facilitating the manipulation of specific silk and silk-related sequences to deduce theirrole in silk functionality. Predictions based on regression analysis can thereby be used to test the limitsof silk tuning, and novel functionalities can be produced by inserting non-native sequence elements.This newly created model spider system is however not limited to silk research and can find wideapplicability in the study of spider biology.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 19, 2020
- Source ID
- N629092012068
Entities
People
- Michael Radonich
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Bayreuth