Spider Silk

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Spider Silk

• Dawson Bausman
• March 28, 2002

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• Variations
• Golden Orb Web Weaver

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Spider Silk

• Where does it come from?
• What is it?
• What are its advantageous properties?
• How can it be mass produced?
• What are the applications?

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Where does it come from?
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• The seven glands are
• Ampulleceae major and minor for walking threads
  and dragline
• Pyriformes for the attaching threads
• Aciniformes for encapsulating prey
• Tubiliformes for the silk of the egg-sac
• Coronatae threads for the axis of the sticking
  threads
• Glandula aggregata for the sticky binding material

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Silk Releasing Tubes

• 100-50,000 tubes
• Strands as small as 20 nanometers

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• Each fiber only 4 to 5 microns in diameter
• Entire strand about 15 to 20 microns in diameter

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What is it?

• 30 to 45 crystalline

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What is it?

• More than 50 of silk is a polymerized protein
  called fibroine.

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What is it?

• Exact sequence and structure unknown (at least
  unpublished)
• Main contents are 7 natural Amino Acids
• Alanine and Glycine
• Glutamine, Leucine, Arginine, Tyrosine, Serine

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What is it?

• 2 Alanine rich proteins embedded in a jelly like
  glycine rich polymer
• 1 protein is highly ordered crystalline, other is
  not ordered. These proteins give toughness.

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What is it?

• How can proteins compete with Kevlar???

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Advantageous Properties

• Tailorable Properties

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Advantageous Properties
Normal
5x
20x
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Diameter

• Average is .15 mm
• Smallest Measured is .02 mm
• Human Detection
• Insect Detection of the web

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Advantageous Properties

• Coated with antiseptic agents (pyrolidin,
  potassium hydrogen phosphate and potassium
  nitrate)
• Process proteins from water based solutions
• Water

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Water
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Mechanical Properties

• Inelastic or Elastic
• Tough at low temperatures
• Tensile Strength of 400,000 lbs / sq. in
• 25 lighter than other synthetic petroleum based
  fibers
• Specific Strength

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Nature vs. Man

• Nature is uncertain and slow
• Farming is not possible

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Mass Production

• 22,000 base pairs to the genetic sequence
• Believed to only need 300 of these pairs

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Mass Production

• Plants, Fungi, Bacteria
• Mammals

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Webster and Pete
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Stress Strain
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Draw Ratio
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Uses

• Past WWI Cross hairs, Tribal uses

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Uses

• Medical - sutures, tendons, ligaments
• 10,000/gram

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Uses

• Textile Industry

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Automotive Industry
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Bullet Proof Vests
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Space Station Coatings
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Biodegradable Fishing Line
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Spider Man
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Conclusions

• Spider Silk is an excellent tailorable fiber
  material
• There is quite a bit of work yet to be done to
  perfect the process of making silk
• There are many potential applications of silk

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Acknowledgements

• Jeffery Turner and Chantal LaRouche of Nexia
  Biotechnologies
• David Knight and Fritz Vollrath of Oxford
  University
• Randy Lewis of the University of Wyoming

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QUESTIONS?