Spider silk has long been of interest for numerous applications because it is extremely tear-resistant, elastic, lightweight, and biodegradable.
In what may be the first work applying CRISPR-Cas9 to spiders, Professor Dr. Thomas Scheibel, Chair of Biomaterials at the University of Bayreuth and senior author of the study, along with his doctoral student Edgardo Santiago-Rivera, developed an injection solution that included the components of the gene-editing system as well as a gene sequence for a red fluorescent protein. This solution was injected into the eggs of unfertilized female spiders, which were then mated with males of the same species. As a result, the offspring of the gene-edited spiders showed red fluorescence in their dragline silk – clear evidence of the successful knock-in of the gene sequence into a silk protein.
“We have demonstrated, for the first time worldwide, that CRISPR-Cas9 can be used to incorporate a desired sequence into spider silk proteins, thereby enabling the functionalization of these silk fibers,” says Scheibel. “The ability to apply CRISPR gene-editing to spider silk is very promising for materials science research – for example, it could be used to further increase the already high tensile strength of spider silk.”
The findings were published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. The study was funded by the Office of Naval Research Global and the Air Force Office for Scientific Research.