The evolutionary diversification of spiders is attributed to spectacular innovations in silk. Spiders are unique in synthesizing many different kinds of silk, and using silk for a variety of ecological functions throughout their lives, particularly to make prey-catching webs. Here, we construct a broad higher-level phylogeny of spiders combining molecular data with traditional morphological and...

In spite of all the efforts on deciphering such spinning process of spiders, the underlying mechanism currently is yet to be fully revealed. In this research, we designed a novel approach to quantitatively estimate the overall concentration change of spider silk along the progression of liquid-to-solid silk transition from the gland silk. As a prior characterization, we first studied the influe...

Many kinds of membrane have been used for the guided bone regeneration (GBR) technique. However, most membranes do not fulfill all requirements for the ideal membrane for the GBR technique. Among them, collagen membrane has been most widely used. However, its high price and weak tensile strength in wet condition are limitations for wide clinical application. Synthetic polymers have also been us...

We present a silk biomaterial platform with highly tunable mechanical and degradation properties for engineering and regeneration of soft tissues such as, skin, adipose, and neural tissue, with elasticity properties in the kilopascal range. Lyophilized silk sponges were prepared under different process conditions and the effect of silk molecular weight, concentration and crystallinity on 3D sca...

Bombyx mori (silkworm) silk proteins have been utilized as unique biomaterials for various medical applications. To develop a novel affinity silk material, we generated a transgenic silkworm that spins silk protein containing the fibroin L-chain linked with the single-chain variable fragment (scFv) as a fusion protein. Previously, the scFv-conjugated "affinity" silk powder specifically immunopr...

Bone transplants are used to treat fractures and increase new tissue development in bone tissue engineering. Grafting of massive implantations showing slow curing rate and results in cell death for poor vascularization. The potentials of biocomposite scaffolds to mimic extracellular matrix (ECM) and including new biomaterials could produce a better substitute for new bone tissue formation. A pu...

The highly fluorescent natural dye berberine can be easily identified in microscopic textile samples by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy employing citrate-reduced Ag colloid. The ordinary Raman (OR) and SERS spectra of berberine are presented and discussed in the light of a DFT calculation. Using FT-Raman and FT-SERS we could reliably compare relative intensity shifts and investigate the ads...

Arthropods face several key challenges in processing concentrated feedstocks of proteins (silk dope) into solid, semi-crystalline silk fibres. Strikingly, independently evolved lineages of silk-producing organisms have converged on the use of liquid crystal intermediates (mesophases) to reduce the viscosity of silk dope and assist the formation of supramolecular structure. However, the exact na...

Silk-based medical products have a long history of use as a material for surgical sutures because of their desirable mechanical properties. However, silk fibroin fabric has been reported to be haemolytic when in direct contact with blood. The layer-by-layer self-assembly technique provides a method for surface modification to improve the biocompatibility of silk fibroin fabrics. Regenerated sil...