Spider Silk for Tissue Engineering Applications

Abstract

Due to its properties, such as biodegradability, low density, excellent biocompatibility and unique mechanics, spider silk has been used as a natural biomaterial for a myriad of applications. First clinical applications of spider silk as suture material go back to the 18th century. Nowadays, since natural production using spiders is limited due to problems with farming spiders, recombinant production of spider silk proteins seems to be the best way to produce material in sufficient quantities. The availability of recombinantly produced spider silk proteins, as well as their good processability has opened the path towards modern biomedical applications. Here, we highlight the research on spider silk-based materials in the field of tissue engineering and summarize various two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds made of spider silk. Finally, different applications of spider silk-based materials are reviewed in the field of tissue engineering in vitro and in vivo.Molecules 2020, 25, 737 2 of 20 ampullate spidroins as it lacks polyalanine and glycine-proline-glycine motifs typically present in MaSp1 and MaSp2. It was shown that MaSp3 repetitive regions contain larger and more polar amino acids than that in MaSp1 or MaSp2 [9] Most spidroins consist of a repetitive core domain flanked by nonrepetitive amino-and carboxyl-terminal domains [10,11] The major ampullate spidroins assemble and form distinguishable substructures, which finally result in a hierarchically structured fiber. This fiber is then in some cases surrounded by glycoproteins and lipids [12].

Properties of Biomimetic Artificial Spider Silk Fibers Tuned by PostSpin Bath Incubation

“…Making spider silk proteins in heterologous hosts is the most promising route to successful production of artificial spider silk [9]. To obtain truly silk-like fibers, protein production and purification under non-denaturing conditions and subsequent biomimetic spinning methods are likely required [16].…”

“…In recent decades, spider silks and their extraordinary mechanical and biological properties have gained interest from the scientific community as well as from the industry [1][2][3][4]. Spider silk is envisioned as an interesting material for applications in tissue engineering [2,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11], the textile industry [12,13] and as reinforcement in composites [14]. Unfortunately, spiders produce small amounts of silk and they are difficult to farm due to their cannibalistic, predatory, and solitary nature [15].…”

Mechanical Properties and Weibull Scaling Laws of Unknown Spider Silks

“…Spider silks are biocompatible materials that present extraordinary mechanical properties in comparison to most of the natural and manmade fibers [1][2][3][4][5][6]. For this reason, they have been deeply investigated as potential materials in biomedical technologies, e.g., tissue engineering [7][8][9][10]. Spider silks are produced by different glands with different aims [11,12].…”

Host Systems for the Production of Recombinant Spider Silk

“…In addition, spider silk proteins are water soluble, biocompatible, and biodegradable [4]. Owing to these outstanding properties, spider silk, notably dragline silk (see Glossary), has been utilised for a plethora of applications, ranging from battery components to tissue scaffolds [5,6].…”

“…The use of spider silk within medicine is not a recent phenomenon; for instance, the physicians of ancient Rome reportedly used spider silk to dress open battle wounds [70]. Nowadays, dragline and recombinant silks are being investigated for use in a variety of 2D and 3D tissue scaffolds, as reviewed by Salehi and colleagues [6].…”