Spinning Artificial Spider Silk

Anna Rising

Professor

Spiders produce up to seven different kinds of silks

Rising and Johansson, Nat Chem Biol. 2015

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Repetitive part

The spider silk gland

Soluble protein at highconcentration (30-50%).

Unordered structure

Hijirida 1996; Rising 2014; Simmons 1996

Function: protein synthesis storage fiber formation

Spider silk is an attractive material

Material Tensile Strength

(Gpa)

Extensibility (%) Toughness (MJm-3)

Dragline silk 0.88-1.5 21-27 136-194

Kevlar 49 3.6 2.7 50

High tensile steel 1.5 0.8 6

Gosline J Exp Biol 1999; Blackledge J Exp Biol 2006; Denny 1976 J. Exp. Biol. , Köhler J. exp. Zool. 1995; Radke. PLoS ONE. 2011

• Extreme mechanical properties

• Low density

• Biodegradable

• Successfully used to enable nerve regeneration in animal models

https://www.wired.com/2009/09/spider-silk/

~ 1 x 3 m70 persons

4 years1 million spiders

1

cm

Euprosthenops australis

Rising & Johansson. Nat Chem Biol. 2015; Andersson et al PLoS Biol 2014; Kronqvist et al. Nat Commun. 2014

A broad and steep pH gradient

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CT

Rising & Johansson. Nat Chem Biol. 2015; Andersson et al PLoS Biol 2014; Kronqvist et al. Nat Commun. 2014

Spider silk formation is controlled by complex molecular mechanisms

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LOCK

TRIGGER

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2 Rep

A successful design

Is efficiently produced in bacteria

Is extremely soluble and can be concentrated to >500 mg/ml (>50%) in an aqueous buffer, pH 7-8

Andersson, Jia et al. Nat Chem Biol. 2017

Andersson et al. Nat Chem Biol. 2017

An unexpected discovery…

Rising & Johansson. Nat Chem Biol. 2015

NT keeps the silk proteins in solution

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Mimicking Nature’s own way of

producing sticky proteins

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Johansson; Nordling, Kronqvist, Rising

• Lowers the surface tension

• Is composed of phospholids and a few specific

proteins

• Used to treat millions of prematurely born

infants

• Is produced from pig lungs

Lung surfactant

Whitsett et al. Annu Rev Pathol 2015; Kronqvist et al. Nat Commun. 2017

NT +

We can make large amounts of cheap lung surfactant

Development of novel treatment regimes for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome)

NT for industrial production of valuable proteins

Development of novel drug delivery systems to the lungs

Zebialowicz, Larsson, Antoni, Velikyan, Curstedt, Johansson et al. unpublished

• Karolinska Institutet: Janne Johansson, Tore Curstedt, Peter Bergman, Elisabet Åkesson, Mattias Sköld, Outi

Hovatta

• Uppsala Universitet: Anders Larsson, Gunnar Antoni, Irina Velikyan

• Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis: Kristaps Jaudzems

• New York University: Mitchel Chesler

• Past and current group members: Marlene Andersson, Jakub Zebialowicz, Oihana Basabe Burgos, Pavol

Mikolka, Kerstin Nordling, Nina Kronqvist, Medoune Sarr, Mike Thorpe, Nathalie Gonska, Qiupin Jia, Gefei Chen

THANK YOU!