Silk-based biomaterials and applications

This study modifies silk fibroin with fatty acid esterification to create water-stable, anti-fouling, biocompatible materials for implantable applications.

This paper develops a dynamical model to show how spiders use constant-strain dragline silk to control abseiling and jumping, ensuring stable movement and landing.

This paper identifies a metastable dimeric intermediate essential for forming native-like spidroin fibrils, but shows dehydration causes irreversible transition to amyloid-like cross-β structures.

The paper presents the first high-quality genomes of two webspinner species, revealing complex silk gene structures and gland morphology through genomics and CT imaging.

This study investigates how molecular weight of silk proteins affects angiogenesis, finding that high-MW sericin inhibits while low-MW sericin and fibroin promote angiogenic activity through macrophage polarization.

This paper develops a GPR-driven digital twin framework to predict in vivo silk scaffold degradation by decoupling tissue ingrowth from polymer decay, validated in a rat model.

This study uses stiffening hydrogels to model fibrosis stages and shows how different stiffness levels affect fibroblast activation and cytokine secretion.

This paper develops a ROS-responsive silk fibroin mesh with immunoregulatory properties for pelvic floor repair, showing improved immune modulation and tissue integration.

This paper develops an adhesive silk hydrogel patch for localized and sustained delivery of stem cell-derived nanovesicles, showing anti-fibrotic effects in vitro and in a mouse model.

This study uses long-read transcriptomes to identify ancestral spider silk proteins and their evolutionary trajectories, revealing how they diversified into modern silk types.

This paper develops a DNA-silk fibroin hybrid hydrogel that enhances mesenchymal stem cell differentiation and accelerates wound healing in mice.

This paper evaluates silk fibroin-conjugated Doxycycline for sustained drug delivery using in-silico methods, finding strong binding and stability.

This study shows that infusing collagen scaffolds with native spider silk improves their mechanical strength and stability under stretching, while preventing bacterial growth.

This study uses cryo-ET to analyze the ultrastructure of silkworm, spider, and artificial silk, revealing differences in their fundamental structural units and hierarchical organization.

This paper develops a rapid gelling hydrogel formulation using curcumin and silk tyrosine crosslinking for localized anti-cancer drug delivery.

This study identifies three salivary proteins in spider mites that function in both feeding and silk fiber coating, with knockdown experiments showing reduced feeding and silk thickness.

This paper introduces a non-invasive molecular method for species identification using spider silk proteome analysis, achieving 86% accuracy across 15 species.

This study demonstrates that a 35 kDa synthetic spider silk protein can self-assemble into stable nanowires on 2D materials, enabling new biosensing applications.

The paper identifies a new sericin gene, P150/sericin 6, in Bombyx mori, characterizes its structure, and discusses its evolutionary relationships with homologs in other moth species.

The paper reveals extensive allelic variation in silk genes across insect and spider species using long-read sequencing, highlighting convergent patterns in structural protein-coding genes.

The paper identifies chitin and cuticle proteins as key components of the cuticular layer in the spinning duct of silkworms, showing their role in silk mechanical properties.

The paper develops an optimized method to produce biosynthetic tandem repeat protein fibers from industrial waste, achieving high yield and purity.