Biotechnology of Silk

About this book

Biotechnology of Silk is a snapshot of the current state of the art of research and development on the properties and characteristics of silk and their use in medicine and industry. The field encompasses backyard silk production from ancient time to industrial methods in the modern era and includes an example of efforts to maintain silk production on Madagascar. Once revered as worth its weight in gold, silk has captured the imagination from its mythical origins onwards. The latest methods in molecular biology have opened new descriptions of the underlying properties of silk. Advances in technological innovation have created silk production by microbes as the latest breakthrough in the saga of silk research and development. The application of silk to biomaterials is now very active on the basis of excellent properties of silks including recombinant silks for biomaterials and the accumulated structural information.

Contents

1. Wild silk production to support farmers excluded from protected areas of Madagascar. Robert S. Weber and Catherine L. Craig
2. Evolutionary divergence of Lepidopteran and trichopteran fibroins. Kenji Yukuhiro, Hideki Sezutsu and Naoyuki Yonemura
3. The Structure, Silk I and Lamella of (Ala-Gly)15 as the model of Bombyx mori silk fibroin studied with solid state NMR. Tetsuo Asakura, Yu Suzuki, Yasumoto Nakazawa
4. Silk fibroin biomaterials for vascular regeneration. Derya Aytemiz and Tetsuo Asakura
5. Evolution and application of coiled coil silks from insects. Tsunenori Kameda, Andrew A. Walker and Tara D. Sutherland
6. Characterization of underwater silk proteins from caddisfly larva, Steophysche marmorata. Kousaku Ohkawa, Takaomi Nomura, Ryoichi Arai, Koji Abe, Masuhiro Tsukada, and Kimio Hirabayashi
7. Atomic force microscopy and spectroscopy of silk from spider draglines, capture-web spirals, and silkworms Helen Hansma
8. Modular spider silk fibers: Defining new modules and optimizing fiber properties. Michael B. Hinman, Florence Teule, David Perry, Bo An, Sherry Adrianos, Amy Albertson, and Randy Lewis
9. How to pass the gap - Functional morphology and biomechanics of spider bridging threads Jonas O. Wolff, Jutta M. Schneider and Stanislav N. Gorb
10. The power of recombinant spider silk proteins. Stefanie Wohlrab, Christopher Thamm, and Thomas Scheibel
11. Prey capture adhesives produced by orb-weaving spiders. Vasav Sahni, Ali Dhinojwala, Brent D. Opell, and Todd A. Blackledge
12. Silk and web synergy: The merging of material and structural performance. Steven W. Cranford, Nicola M. Pugno, and Markus J. Buehler

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