Themed collection Silk and silk-inspired materials

This review focuses on the adhesive’s performance, both in synthetic and biomimetic approaches including mussel, sandcastle worm and gecko inspired.

We present an injectable hydrogel based on silk fibroin (SF) nanofibrils which may offer benefits for cell encapsulation and delivery.

We report photo-controlled water gathering on bio-inspired fibers.

The metastable nature of reconstituted silk fibroin (RSF) and its sensitivity to the solvent quality were explored to prepare hydrogels and porous foams that could be useful for the encapsulation of cells and/or hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs.

Molecular probes affect the folding patterns of silk proteins in three generic ways giving novel insights into the material and its potential as benchmark in synthetic biology.

Single silk fibers of the caddisfly larvae self-recover their initial modulus and length after pseudo-plastic deformation due to two independent Ca²⁺-crosslinked networks.

Drug delivery systems allow tissue/cell specific targeting of drugs in order to reduce total drug amounts administered to an organism and potential side effects upon systemic drug delivery.

Reconstituted solutions of silk protein are transformed into gels with significant elastic recovery and strain hardening features.

We investigate the origin of variability in as-reeled natural silk fibres from different individuals using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis combined with polar solvent penetration.

Our simulation results show that the conformation of our silk-like protein changes upon self-assembly into aggregates containing more than two proteins. We find that self-assembly of the proteins is cooperative.

The breakage of animal silk fibers is studied using a Hierarchical Network (HN) model, in which the breaking mechanism is described from the molecular nanoscale to the nano-micro-scale.

NMR two-dimensional relaxation studies and MD simulations are used to probe the distribution, dynamics, populations and thermal behavior of water in major ampullate spider dragline silk.

The effects of the modular motifs on β-sheet formation of silk fibroin self-assembly were: GS6 > GS10 > GY8 > GY6.

Due to their mechanical stability, biocompatibility and biodegradability, silks are promising materials for various biomedical applications including tissue engineering.

Tight silica nano- and microchannels with uniform tubular diameters were fabricated from different fiber templates. Flow of liquids was monitored by confocal microscopy and described by the Lucas–Washburn equation.

The colloidal properties of spider silk particles prepared from eADF4(C16) have been analyzed concerning their application in pharmaceutical formulations. Electrostatic and steric forces provide stability over a large range of pH and ionic strength.

The mechanical properties of eADF4 particles show dependence on crosslinking, molecular weight and hydration state, which offers multiple tuning possibilities for potential applications.

Self-assembled composite networks of silk-like fibers in a soft physical network show enhanced modulus and toughness.

Sodium chloride prevents premature silk protein assembly in the spider’s spinning gland by affecting inter-terminal domain salt bridges.

Infrared spectroscopy coupled with hydrogen–deuterium exchange has allowed us to quantify the content of crystalline and interphase β-sheets in spider major ampullate silk and silkworm silk.

The molecular structure and properties of the regenerated silk fibroin suffer severely from the silk degumming and fiber dissolution systems.