Genetically Modifying Silk Worms For Super Silk 129
New submitter davidshenba sends this quote from the BBC:
"U.S. researchers have created silkworms that are genetically modified to spin much stronger silk (abstract). In weight-for-weight terms, spider silk is stronger than steel. ... Researchers have been trying to reproduce such silk for decades. But it is unfeasible to 'farm' spiders for the commercial production of their silk because the arachnids don't produce enough of it — coupled with their proclivity for eating each other. Silk worms, however, are easy to farm and produce vast amounts of silk — but the material is fragile. Researchers have tried for years to get the best of both worlds — super-strong silk in industrial quantities — by transplanting genes from spiders into worms. But the resulting genetically modified worms have not produced enough spider silk until now. GM worms produced by a team led by Professor Don Jarvis of Wyoming University seem to be producing a composite of worm and spider silk in large amounts — which the researchers say is just as tough as spider silk."
Submitter did NOT RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Actual quote from the actual fine article:
their eventual aim is to produce silk from worms that has the toughness of spider silk.
More details around this spider silk (Score:5, Informative)
Wonder if this is a part of an lead-in [uwyo.edu] on the research.
Looks like WYU is sitting on a ton of patents [uwyo.edu] around spider silk technologies.
Nicer pictures of this article can be found at http://inhabitat.com/genetically-modified-silkworms-spin-super-strong-spider-silk-for-bandages-and-bulletproof-vests/ [inhabitat.com]
Re:Why is there any concern about GM silk? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Genetically modified spider escapes into the wild
They're genetically modifying silk worms, not spiders.
It mates with other sipders creating a legion of these spiders with super silk.
The silk is the same silk that spiders produce normally - that's the point.
New spider silk isn't as sticky as normal spider silk
Spiders produce two kinds of silk (massive oversimplification). The sticky stuff is relatively weak, the non-sticky stuff is used for structural parts of their webs. Go and poke a spiderweb sometime - you'll find some parts stick to you and tear easily, other parts don't stick and are tougher. Presumably the researchers are trying to make silk worms produce the non-sticky variety, as there is little call for silk that sticks to everything and tears very easily.
Re:GM silkworm (Score:5, Informative)
It's also interesting for things that are only partly silk. Pashmina wool comes from the underside of the chin of the nepalese goat and is amazingly soft, but very fragile. You can't make things from it if you want to be able to wear them more than once, so you mix in some silk to add strength[1], but the more silk you add the more of the softness and warmth you lose. Stronger silk would mean that you could weave fabrics with a very small amount of silk and a lot of something softer.
[1] It amused me to see street sellers in NYC advertising pashmina shawls as '50% silk!' as if that was a good thing. The high quality ones are at most 20% silk. The silk is a lot cheaper than the wool.
Re:Why is there any concern about GM silk? (Score:5, Informative)
7 types, sir!
Also, there is much variation between types of spiders with Darwin's Bark spider having the strongest silk of all (drag-line silk from the major ampullate gland)!
And the biggest research that needs to be done is in microfluidics because it's the pH, tension, and hydration status of silk dope that determine the properties of the fibers (those three affect the folding/alignment motifs that make up the super-structure. Spiders regulate this by the speed at which they pull the silk from their spinnarettes. A stupid silk worm will never be able to match this (they naturally make a triangular fiber, whereas a spider's is round). We're trying to put silk worm genes into corn and other crap, but bacterial cell factories produce the proteins efficiently already.