Structural Protein Spider Silk

Spider Silk: The Answer to the Need for Light-Weight Body Armor ...

Recently, scientists and engineers have turned back to nature for inspiration and help in solving some of science’s, the military’s, and the public’s problems; this method, called biomimicry, has been quite successful thus far. In the question of creating light-weight body armor that successfully protects soldiers and officers of the law from ballistics and shrapnel, scientists have turned to spider silk for the answer.

Spider silk has remarkable properties, which ostensibly find there basis in its structure and composition. In general, a spider can produce about six different types of silk all of which serve a specific function for the spider and have slightly different compositions and structures. For instance, the Argiope argentata spider has five different types of silk that have separate functions: dragline silk, “used for the web’s outer rim and spokes, and the lifeline while making the web; capture-spiral silk, a very sticky and flexible silk used to capture prey; tubiliform silk, which is the stiffest silk and used to protect the egg sacs; aciniform silk, which is two or three times stronger than the other types and is used to wrap and secure captured prey; and minor-ampullate silk, which functions as temporary scaffolding during web construction.