Schmuck Benjamin, Greco Gabriele, Pessatti Tomas Bohn, Sonavane Sumalata, Langwallner Viktoria, Arndt Tina, Rising Anna
Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and Biochemistry Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Box 7011 Uppsala 75007 Sweden.
Department of Biosciences and Nutrition Karolinska Institutet, Neo Huddinge 14186 Sweden.
Adv Funct Mater. 2024 Aug 28;34(35):2305040. doi: 10.1002/adfm.202305040. Epub 2023 Oct 10.
Artificial spider silk is an attractive material for many technical applications since it is a biobased fiber that can be produced under ambient conditions but still outcompetes synthetic fibers (e.g., Kevlar) in terms of toughness. Industrial use of this material requires bulk-scale production of recombinant spider silk proteins in heterologous host and replication of the pristine fiber's mechanical properties. High molecular weight spider silk proteins can be spun into fibers with impressive mechanical properties, but the production levels are too low to allow commercialization of the material. Small spider silk proteins, on the other hand, can be produced at yields that are compatible with industrial use, but the mechanical properties of such fibers need to be improved. Here, the literature on wet-spinning of artificial spider silk fibers is summarized and analyzed with a focus on mechanical performance. Furthermore, several strategies for how to improve the properties of such fibers, including optimized protein composition, smarter spinning setups, innovative protein engineering, chemical and physical crosslinking as well as the incorporation of nanomaterials in composite fibers, are outlined and discussed.
人造蜘蛛丝是一种在许多技术应用中颇具吸引力的材料，因为它是一种可在环境条件下生产的生物基纤维，但在韧性方面仍优于合成纤维（如凯夫拉尔纤维）。这种材料的工业应用需要在异源宿主中大规模生产重组蜘蛛丝蛋白，并复制原始纤维的机械性能。高分子量蜘蛛丝蛋白可纺成具有令人印象深刻机械性能的纤维，但产量过低，无法实现该材料的商业化。另一方面，小蜘蛛丝蛋白的产量与工业用途兼容，但此类纤维的机械性能有待提高。在此，本文总结并分析了关于人造蜘蛛丝纤维湿纺的文献，重点关注机械性能。此外，还概述并讨论了几种改善此类纤维性能的策略，包括优化蛋白质组成、更智能的纺丝装置、创新的蛋白质工程、化学和物理交联以及在复合纤维中掺入纳米材料。
