Silkworms transformed with chimeric silkworm/spider silk genes spin composite silk fibers with improved mechanical properties.
The development of a spider silk-manufacturing process is of great interest. However, there are serious problems with natural manufacturing through spider farming, and standard recombinant protein production platforms have provided limited progress due to their inability to assemble spider silk proteins into fibers. Thus, we used piggyBac vectors to create transgenic silkworms encoding chimeric silkworm/spider silk proteins. The silk fibers produced by these animals were composite materials that included chimeric silkworm/spider silk proteins integrated in an extremely stable manner. Furthermore, these composite fibers were, on average, tougher than the parental silkworm silk fibers and as tough as native dragline spider silk fibers. These results demonstrate that silkworms can be engineered to manufacture composite silk fibers containing stably integrated spider silk protein sequences, which significantly improve the overall mechanical properties of the parental silkworm silk fibers.
Department of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
Florence
F
Teulé
Yun-Gen
YG
Miao
Bong-Hee
BH
Sohn
Young-Soo
YS
Kim
J Joe
JJ
Hull
Malcolm J
MJ
Fraser
Randolph V
RV
Lewis
Donald L
DL
Jarvis
D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D012831:Bombyx / Q000235:genetics*; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics; D017344:Genes, Insect / Q000235:genetics*; D005822:Genetic Vectors / Q000235:genetics; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D055595:Mechanical Phenomena; D047011:Silk / Q000235:genetics*; D013112:Spiders / Q000235:genetics*
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D047011:Silk; C485184:enhanced green fluorescent protein; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins