Spider Silk Genetically Engineered

An anonymous reader writes "Commercial silk comes not from spiders, but from the silk moth (spiders are hard to coral). But spider silk is stronger, so engineers, including in the Army, would like to use it for armor, tethers, and clothing. Scientists at Nexia Biotechnologies bioengineered some in 2002, but in a two-step process not ready for prime time. According to a LiveScience article, a separate team has now created self-spinning spider-web fiber. More work is still needed to produce anything useful, but the researchers say it might happen within a decade."

Accessories

[pipingguy]

Is anyone working on a wrist-mounted launching device for this stuff?

Re:Accessories

[ArsonSmith]

so it's not good to go to be all about the go to guy?

Re:Accessories

[pragma_x]

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a chemist, chemical engineer or even a biologist.

Dragline silk is made primarily of two proteins, called ADF-3 and ADF-4. These are produced in a gland in the spider's abdomen, using the same amino acids that your body uses to produce skin and hair. ADF-4 allows for the rapid production of fiber, and ADF-3 regulates this production. Each protein is made by a specific gene.

Gat's team put these genes into a genetically engineered virus, then let the virus infect the cultured caterpillar cells. The cells produced silk proteins, and then spider fibers formed spontaneously in the petri dish.

Looks like the stuff might be easy to spin into silk, since it does it on a molecular level on its own. Maybe all you need is these silk protiens stored in a solvent that evaporates rapidly, stored under pressure; who knows. I suppose the result wouldn't be too unlike a can of crazy string or spider-man's wrist-mounted launching device.

Combine that with some gecko-tape [newscientist.com] gloves and shoes and you'll be fighting crime in no time.

our undoing

[poptones]

So this is how we'll destroy ourselves - not with fire or machines, but by clogging the world with self-replicating spider silk!

Spider silk from goats and caterpillars

[beeplet]

Commercial silk comes not from spiders, but from the silk moth (spiders are hard to coral).

And spider silk doesn't come from spiders either - Nexia used transgenic goats (which secreted the silk proteins in their milk) and this group is using transgenic caterpillar cells. I just think this is an interesting story in the context of the recent stories on genetic chimeras. Now if they could create a transgenic animal that would actually spin the spider silk, they's be all set!

Re:Spider silk from goats and caterpillars

[cephyn]

so in other words, a spinstress that naturally lactates spider silk and then puts it straight on the loom.

Intriguing...though it may be a tough sell...

Wake me up...

[centauri]

... when I can buy a charcoal black uniform with arachnofiber weave.

How long....

[failedlogic]

"Before my Spidey sense is tingling!" really becomes a pickup line?

Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

It's "corral", not "coral". Coral is dead sea creatures.... corral is a place for storing animals, and also the act of storing animals.

I really can't believe I'm so anal as to not only notice the error, but point it out to this extent. Thats what I get for being a spelling bee champ marrying into a farming family.

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[pipingguy]

I really can't believe I'm so anal as to not only notice the error, but point it out to this extent

Have you considered proo freading as a career?

Sloppy posts at slashdot are irritating to me too. I don't think that pointing out errors is all that bad, as there are a lot of non-native spellers and kids posting here who might benefit from correction.

Then again, there are those who intentionally make mistakes just to annoy.

It seems odd to me that people who need to be exact when typing (to make a pr

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

Proo freading, you say? Does it pay better than proof reading?

The problem is, although by far my best skills lie in writing and literary crap, I don't have any college courses to my name. I have been accepted to the third year writing courses at my college (they skipped me past first and second based on my submissions) but I have neither the time nor money to go.

Anyways, we're getting off topic. Yeah, sloppy posts irritate me, especially people who either do not use caps or punctuation at all, or conv

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

Of course, other people go around and take part in conversations which do not even remotely concern them, and belittle everyone involved. Hooray, anonymity, eh?

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

I never said it was my real name, but I can be contacted and held accountable for my comments. You can't.

My original comment was made in jest, and in an effort to help promote proper Net-iquette. It was not an attack on anyone. If you would like to have a private conversation, like you seem to, in an effort to prove you are better than me, please contact me.

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

? You say you aren't out to prove you're better than anyone, and then you go on to say that you're better than me for not mentioning anything about yourself, in a conversation that you started?

Please go away.

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Wandering Wombat]

Ow, I've been zinged.

Grow up.

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[RobertB-DC]

Will you guys stop so I can close my browser and get some work done?

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[lawpoop]

Coral is not dead sea creatures. It's acutally a living animal [wikipedia.org].

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[lawpoop]

Coral is not dead sea creatures. It's acutally a living animal [wikipedia.org].

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[Muad'Dave]

And a Chorale is "a hymn or psalm sung to a traditional or composed melody in church." [m-w.com]

Gotta love those homophones!

Re:Obligatory Spelling Nazi post....

[RobertB-DC]

Gotta love those homophones!

I thought Bush was pushing a Constitutional amendment against them?

[rimshot] Thanks, I'm here all week, enjoy the buffet!

Obligatory punctuation correction.

[Schwarzchild]

"Thats what I get for being a spelling bee champ"

Actually, I think you meant to write:

That's

and not

Thats

Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood punctuation Nazi.

Spider Coral?

[cephyn]

"Spiders are hard to coral"

Huh? A new marine animal? Perhaps a new form of measuring hardness? (Spiders are as hard as coral. Take that, Moh's Scale!) Or perhaps a failure of auto-spellchecking and lack of editorial review.

Spiders are, in fact, hard to corral.

But I expect this from /. I'm not new here. 8)

Uhm... I just said that.

[Wandering Wombat]

Uhm.... I just said that.

Re:Spider Coral?

[MasterDirk]

I think maybe he ment that they're hard on coral. They (spiders) are predators, and I remember reading somewhere that coral is an animal. Maybe it's related to fungus, which is also an animal I think. Spiders scare me. Fnord.

Re:Spider Coral?

[DrSkwid]

Could you explain to me how a spell checker would help spot "coral" as a mistake ?

Re:Spider Coral?

[cephyn]

it wouldn't. as I said, it was a failure of auto-spellchecking and a lack of editorial review.

Spellchecked it, came out OK, so it got posted, with no editorial review.

Tough to "Coral"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not so much that spiders are tough to corral compared with silkworms, it's that most spiders are incredibly territorial creatures. To raise silkworms, you just need some specimens and a few mulberry bushes- hundreds of silkworms will happily coexist on a bush, and eventually will grow up and spin the silk cocoons you're after. Put an equivalent number of spiders in the same space, even with ample food available, and they will kill and eat each other until all territorial disputes have been resolved to the satisfaction of all (living) parties.

who are these hacks?

[my_fake_account]

"Spiders, being territorial, are impossible to domesticate."

Horses, dogs, cats, and chickens are all territorial, but they've been domesticated.

Do they have editors at this magazine?

Re:who are these hacks?

[Urkki]

Horses, dogs and cats live in groups in the wild, and it's the groups that are territorial. That makes it easy to domesticate them, it just requires making them part of your "pack".

Re:who are these hacks?

[Ours]

Exactly, and on top of that, even in the wild they don't kill each other. They just fight until one gives up. Sure it probably happens that one will die but I guess with locked-up spiders it would be much more a fight "to de death".

No more nylon stockings and parachutes

[davidwr]

At last! We can go back to silk! sort of.

It's all in the spinning

[gbulmash]

According to an article on the spider silk goats, way back when, the proteins were fine, but the real trick was in the extrusion. The way the spiders spin the proteins into the final product is a *major* factor in the strength and versatility of the silk. It's not just spinning them into silk that's the trick, there's a certain finesse to it that they don't seem to have quite right yet.

- Greg

After all that advancements in science, you mean

[zlel]

we're still chasing spiders?

Think of the (nuclear) possibilities!

[lilmouse]

You're all discussing the mis-spelling (yeah, yeah, comment away - I'm sure this is wrong too) of a funny line, and missing the point of this!

Spider silk is so cool! It's got a tensile strength even higher than Kevlar and is seen as a natural replacement for that material [bris.ac.uk], espeically once we can mass produce it. It's lightweight, extremely strong, and if you coat it with Starlite [starlitetechnologies.com], you've got battle armor that could withstand a nuclear hit! How much cooler can you get?

--LWM