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Review
. 2022 Aug 9:10:958486.
doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.958486. eCollection 2022.

Bioengineering of spider silks for the production of biomedical materials

Daniela Matias de C Bittencourt  1 , Paula Oliveira  2 , Valquíria Alice Michalczechen-Lacerda  1 , Grácia Maria Soares Rosinha  1 , Justin A Jones  2 , Elibio L Rech  1
Affiliations
Review

Bioengineering of spider silks for the production of biomedical materials

Daniela Matias de C Bittencourt et al. Front Bioeng Biotechnol. .

Abstract

Spider silks are well known for their extraordinary mechanical properties. This characteristic is a result of the interplay of composition, structure and self-assembly of spider silk proteins (spidroins). Advances in synthetic biology have enabled the design and production of spidroins with the aim of biomimicking the structure-property-function relationships of spider silks. Although in nature only fibers are formed from spidroins, in vitro, scientists can explore non-natural morphologies including nanofibrils, particles, capsules, hydrogels, films or foams. The versatility of spidroins, along with their biocompatible and biodegradable nature, also placed them as leading-edge biological macromolecules for improved drug delivery and various biomedical applications. Accordingly, in this review, we highlight the relationship between the molecular structure of spider silk and its mechanical properties and aims to provide a critical summary of recent progress in research employing recombinantly produced bioengineered spidroins for the production of innovative bio-derived structural materials.

Keywords: bioengineering; biomaterial; biomedical applications; spider silk; spidroins; synthetic biology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
An overview of how synthetic biology can be applied for the development of spider silk bio-derived structural materials. Synthetic biology approaches are ideal to study spider silk proteins structure and mechanical properties (A) and engineering them to produce biomaterials with desirable properties (B), in order to develop innovative biomedical devices (C). Created with BioRender.com.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Spider silks types and protein structure. Spider silk proteins (spidroins) are composed by repetitive amino acid motifs flanked by the highly conserved N- and C- terminal domains (A). The different combination of the repetitive motifs in the spidroins directly reflects their mechanical properties, allowing the production of different kinds of silks for specific tasks in spider’s life (B). This figure was created with BioRender.com.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
The different heterologous expressions systems used to produce recombinant spider silk protein (rSSP). Created with BioRender.com.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Bioengineering of spider silks. Using synthetic biology tools it is possible to design spider silks with tailor made functionalities (A) and to produce recombinant spider silk protein (rSSP) using heterologous expression systems (B). Although in nature only fibers are formed from spidroins, in vitro, rSSP can be molded in different morphologies including nanofibrils, particles, capsules, hydrogels, films or foams (C). The versatility of spidroins, along with their biocompatible and biodegradable nature, also place them as the perfect biomaterial for the design of improved drug delivery systems, tissue engineering scaffolds and biosensor devises (D). Created with BioRender.com.
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