Team:GreatBay SZ/Hardware
Hardware
Abstract
Previous efforts and research done by other iGEM teams on recombinant spider silk have stopped to the point of producing actual fiber, and to take one step further, our team has spent a lot of time on designing a spinning machine capable of producing spider silk from spinning dope (concentrated spider protein solution). Our design is successful in spinning out fiber, and its principle is based on a method called wet-extrusion-based spinning. During wet spinning, the protein plus solvent solution (HFIP) extrudes through a spinneret (a tip which the spinning dope comes through) directly into a low pH solution, in which coagulation of spidroin occurs and fiber is produced. In our project, the N and C terminal domains of spidroin reacts to pH solution and undergoes structural changes, allowing the spinning dope to become wet fibers in mainly beta sheet conformation. To enhance the fiber properties, post-processing methods are also considered, including longer immersion time of fiber in coagulant solution, which is done by elongated designs of the pH solution container.
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