Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Biomaterials

Spider strength and stretchability

Nature Chemical Biology volume 6, pages 702–703 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Spider dragline silk is an incredibly tough elastomer, but it is also very elastic. Recent work has demonstrated how the mechanical properties of spider silk and other natural elastomers can be mimicked to produce artificial protein-based fibers with great potential for industrial applications.

Nature has developed elastomeric proteins with remarkably diverse mechanical properties and functions2. Spider dragline silk has unmatched toughness and is elastic at the same time, whereas collagen, the chief constituent of our tendons, has great energy storage capacity but is not very stretchy. Natural rubber-like proteins, such as resilin, elastin or the giant muscle protein titin, combine high resilience, large extensibility and relatively low stiffness, which predestines them for strain-energy storage. Scientists are trying to mimic the natural diversity in chemical structures and elastic mechanisms in new synthetic materials. One interesting principle that has emerged is that mechanical properties can be optimized by modulating the number of unitary building blocks in elastomers composed of repetitive protein sequences. Spider dragline silk mainly consists of spidroin proteins, which are highly modular3. Their unique amino acid composition (rich in glycine and alanine) gives rise to crystalline β-sheets alternating with less-ordered and amorphous regions (Fig. 1a). The crystals impart robustness to the spidroins, whereas the amorphous regions bestow extensibility2,3,4. Importantly, different spider silks have different concentrations of crystals and thus different mechanical properties. The question has been whether scientists can succeed in weaving threads with properties as extraordinary as those of spider dragline silk by modulating the number of protein monomers in the synthetic silk fiber.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Hierarchical arrangement and mechanical properties of natural and recombinant elastomers.

References

  1. Xia, X.X. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107, 14059–14063 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Gosline, J. et al. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 357, 121–132 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Omenetto, F.G. & Kaplan, D.L. Science 329, 528–531 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Heim, M., Keerl, D. & Scheibel, T. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl. 48, 3584–3596 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Chinali, A. et al. J. Mol. Evol. 70, 325–338 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Lv, S. et al. Nature 465, 69–73 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Linke, W.A. & Krüger, M. Physiology (Bethesda) 25, 186–198 (2010).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Freiburg, A. et al. Circ. Res. 86, 1114–1121 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Bullard, B., Linke, W.A. & Leonard, K. J. Muscle Res. Cell Motil. 23, 435–447 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Linke, W.A. et al. J. Cell Biol. 146, 631–644 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wolfgang A. Linke is in the Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Institute of Physiology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.,

    Wolfgang A Linke

Authors
  1. Wolfgang A Linke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wolfgang A Linke.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Linke, W. Spider strength and stretchability. Nat Chem Biol 6, 702–703 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.442

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.442

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research