Silkomics: Insight into the Silk Spinning Process of Spiders

Santos-Pinto, José Roberto Aparecido dos; García, Ana María; Arcuri, Helen Andrade; Esteves, Franciele Grego; Salles, Heliana Clara; Lubec, Gert; Palma, Mário Sérgio

doi:10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b01056

Cited by 26 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 83 publications

(173 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our study corroborates work showing that amino acid compositional shifts confer consequences on crystalline and non-crystalline protein structures [ 11 , 17 , 26 , 27 , 49 ] and alignments within the crystalline, amorphous and lamellar regions of the silk, which in turn influences its strength, extensibility and toughness [ 1 , 40 , 43 , 50 , 52 ]. Our study also uncovered novel mechanisms behind the multilevel shifts in silk properties, as follows.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Multiscale mechanisms of nutritionally induced property variation in spider silks

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Variability in spider major ampullate (MA) silk properties at different scales has proven difficult to determine and remains an obstacle to the development of synthetic fibers mimicking MA silk performance. A multitude of techniques may be used to measure multiscale aspects of silk properties. Here we fed five species of Araneoid spider solutions that either contained protein or were protein deprived and performed silk tensile tests, small and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS), amino acid composition analyses, and silk gene expression analyses, to resolve persistent questions about how nutrient deprivation induces variations in MA silk mechanical properties across scales. Our analyses found that the properties of each spider’s silk varied differently in response to variations in their protein intake. We found changes in the crystalline and non-crystalline nanostructures to play specific roles in inducing the property variations we found. Across treatment MaSp expression patterns differed in each of the five species. We found that in most species MaSp expression and amino acid composition variations did not conform with our predictions based on a traditional MaSp expression model. In general, changes to the silk’s alanine and proline compositions influenced the alignment of the proteins within the silk’s amorphous region, which influenced silk extensibility and toughness. Variations in structural alignment in the crystalline and non-crystalline regions influenced ultimate strength independent of genetic expression. Our study provides the deepest insights thus far into the mechanisms of how MA silk properties vary from gene expression to nanostructure formations to fiber mechanics. Such knowledge is imperative for promoting the production of synthetic silk fibers.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Multiscale mechanisms of nutritionally induced property variation in spider silks

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Owing to its outstanding properties and biocompatible and biodegradable proteinaceous nature, spider silk has attracted attention as a potential tool in the commercial production of synthetic threads for medical and industrial applications [2][3][4][5], and various hosts are being explored for its synthetic production [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Protein composition [12,13] and the variability of the physical properties of spider silk have been extensively studied using the amino acid sequences encoded by spidroin genes as well as spider spinning processes [14][15][16]. However, the contribution of low molecular weight compounds to the properties of spider silk remains elusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Xanthurenic Acid Is the Main Pigment of Trichonephila clavata Gold Dragline Silk

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spider silk is a natural fiber with remarkable strength, toughness, and elasticity that is attracting attention as a biomaterial of the future. Golden orb-weaving spiders (Trichonephila clavata) construct large, strong webs using golden threads. To characterize the pigment of golden T. clavata dragline silk, we used liquid chromatography and mass spectrometric analysis. We found that the major pigment in the golden dragline silk of T. clavata was xanthurenic acid. To investigate the possible function of the pigment, we tested the effect of xanthurenic acid on bacterial growth using gram-negative Escherichia coli and gram-positive Bacillus subtilis. We found that xanthurenic acid had a slight antibacterial effect. Furthermore, to investigate the UV tolerance of the T. clavata threads bleached of their golden color, we conducted tensile deformation tests and scanning electron microscope observations. However, in these experiments, no significant effect was observed. We therefore speculate that golden orb-weaving spiders use the pigment for other purposes, such as to attract their prey in the sunlight.

show abstract

“…Attempts to elucidate the molecular components that comprise dragline silk have involved profiling the amino acid composition of threads, screening cDNA libraries, and performing transcriptomic and proteomic analyses of the silk-producing glands and fibers [ 9 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Much insight into the mechanism of silk extrusion as well as protein composition of dragline silk fibers has come from the orb-weaver N. clavipes [ 8 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehensive Proteomic Analysis of Spider Dragline Silk from Black Widows: A Recipe to Build Synthetic Silk Fibers

Larracas

Hekman

Dyrness

et al. 2016

IJMS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The outstanding material properties of spider dragline silk fibers have been attributed to two spidroins, major ampullate spidroins 1 and 2 (MaSp1 and MaSp2). Although dragline silk fibers have been treated with different chemical solvents to elucidate the relationship between protein structure and fiber mechanics, there has not been a comprehensive proteomic analysis of the major ampullate (MA) gland, its spinning dope, and dragline silk using a wide range of chaotropic agents, inorganic salts, and fluorinated alcohols to elucidate their complete molecular constituents. In these studies, we perform in-solution tryptic digestions of solubilized MA glands, spinning dope and dragline silk fibers using five different solvents, followed by nano liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis with an Orbitrap Fusion™ Tribrid™. To improve protein identification, we employed three different tryptic peptide fragmentation modes, which included collision-induced dissociation (CID), electron transfer dissociation (ETD), and high energy collision dissociation (HCD) to discover proteins involved in the silk assembly pathway and silk fiber. In addition to MaSp1 and MaSp2, we confirmed the presence of a third spidroin, aciniform spidroin 1 (AcSp1), widely recognized as the major constituent of wrapping silk, as a product of dragline silk. Our findings also reveal that MA glands, spinning dope, and dragline silk contain at least seven common proteins: three members of the Cysteine-Rich Protein Family (CRP1, CRP2 and CRP4), cysteine-rich secretory protein 3 (CRISP3), fasciclin and two uncharacterized proteins. In summary, this study provides a proteomic blueprint to construct synthetic silk fibers that most closely mimic natural fibers.

show abstract

Silkomics: Insight into the Silk Spinning Process of Spiders

Cited by 26 publications

References 83 publications

Multiscale mechanisms of nutritionally induced property variation in spider silks

Multiscale mechanisms of nutritionally induced property variation in spider silks

Xanthurenic Acid Is the Main Pigment of Trichonephila clavata Gold Dragline Silk

Comprehensive Proteomic Analysis of Spider Dragline Silk from Black Widows: A Recipe to Build Synthetic Silk Fibers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About