Increasing Advancements in Recombinant Production of Spider Silk Due to Rising Focus on Biomaterials to Drive Spider Silk Market Growth

 

Spider silk has garnered human interest for ages owing to its excellent features of toughness and ductility. Spider silk is one of the most outstanding fibrous biomaterials that consists a large amount of proteins and have shown to not cause inflammation and allergic reactions. Spider silk has been widely used for hunting, fishing, and in bandages as it is antimicrobial, hypoallergenic, and biodegradable. Spiders use their silk for various applications such as webs, wrapping of prey, protecting their offspring, and as a protective measure to ensure their safe escape from predators. As of now, over 34,000 different spider species are known and more than 130 variety of shapes of spider webs are known.

Orb webs are the most studied webs as they consist of several different types of silk. Frame and radii of the orb webs comprise strong and rigid silk and this silk is often used by the spiders as a roping thread. The capture spiral of an orb web contain only one type of protein that is produced in flagelliform gland of the spiders and hence is termed flag silk. Flag silk is highly elastic and can withstand massive impact and these resilient threads are crucial for catching and holding preys that are bigger than spider themselves. Spider silk predominantly consists of proteins that contain large amounts of non-polar and hydrophobic amino acids such as glycine or alanine. Due to its remarkable features such as low density, biodegradability, and unique mechanics, spider silk has been used as a natural biomaterial for a wide range of applications. However, harvesting spider silk from natural sources us challenging and does not provide substantial quantities. Recombinant production of spider silk has proven to be the best approach to produce this excellent material in sufficient quantities.

Availability of recombinantly produced spider silk proteins and their good processability has opened up new avenues of modern biomedical applications. Some of these recombinant spider silk variants are widely available commercially and this biotechnological spider silk production has enabled chemical and genetic modifications to tune the properties of spider silk proteins. Spider silk materials can remain mechanically stable without becoming fragile or brittle for a longer period of time at physiological conditions. Over the recent past, spider silk has been explored for tissue engineering and suture applications.

In a breakthrough study published in March 2022, a team of researchers from the Binghamton University made a new discovery of the capabilities of spider silk. Scientists found that orb-weaving spiders use their webs as an array to extend and sharpen their hearing – which could revolutionize audio hardware. Spider silk is highly sensitive and can reveal movement of vibrating air particles within a sound wave. The team of researchers are continuing to focus on leveraging spider silk to explore ways in which it can be used to detect sound to accelerate development of more sophisticated microphones for a wide range of purposes such as from hearing aids to cell phones. The research study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Key companies in the biotechnology sector and in the global market are increasingly focusing on developing spider silk through various processes on a large-scale to meet a myriad of applications. Major companies in the market include Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc., AMSilk GmbH, Bolt Threads, Inc., Spiber, Inc., Seevix Material Sciences Ltd., Inspidere BV, Technology Holding LLC, Spintex Engineering Ltd., Spiber Technologies AB, Spidey Tek, Inc., and Xampla Ltd. In April 2022, Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc., which is a biotechnology company focused on development and commercialization of spider silk, announced the commencement of its first production run of the second quarter of its recombinant spider silk. To support the growing production capacity, the laboratory team has significantly increased the testing throughput and on completing the testing cycle, the company will have a throughput ten times more as compared to its Q1 2022 production. In the same month, the company announced it had raised USD 1.5 million in funding from a private investment firm as it aims to ramp up its production of spider silk to an industrial scale.