Using spider-silk to develop the next-gen biomaterials

-Kumar Shivam, Amity University Kolkata

Spiders. The word itself can cause shivers down the spine of many people. While the fear of our beloved eight-legged creature has kept many at bay in coming contact with them, some of the brilliant minds from the country of Germany had gathered together to find an ingenious method to prevent microbial infection in patients using the arachnids. They have found a way to incorporate the anti-microbial properties of spider-silk in medical equipment and develop the next generation of biomaterials that could change the healthcare system.

One of the major problems in the health care sector is dealing with the formation of biofilms on the surfaces of different biomedical devices, such as prosthetics, implants, surgical equipment, that not only limit their functionality and lifetime but also cause life-threatening infections. Biofilms are mainly densely packed aggregation of one or more types of organisms enclosed in an extracellular polymeric matrix. 

They are very hard to get rid of, especially those formed by antimicrobic resistance strains, and usually do not respond to the conventional sterilization methods used in the healthcare system. This has posed a significant challenge in the healthcare industry as the biofilm infections during conventional medical therapy have significantly increased mortality rates as well as health care costs worldwide. Thus, a great interest has risen in the past decade in developing advanced biomaterials that selectively inhibit the adherence of microbes on the surfaces of this equipment. One of the methods developed is using the spider silk protein for the formation of 2D and 3D biomaterials.

It has been discovered that the spider silk of many species of the arachnids, especially that of the European garden spider Araneus diadematus, has antimicrobial properties and can withstand microbial infection up to a certain degree. One of the critical steps in the formation of a biofilm is its adherence to the surface of any material. By forming special coatings and scaffolds, using the proteins extracted from the spider silk, we can prevent this selective adherence of the microbes, as well as promote cell attachment and proliferation at the site of usage. 

2D films and 3D hydrogels have been developed using the protein extracted from the dragline spider silk of the European garden spider. It has been found that at the nanoscale, the biomaterials coated with these films and gels prevent the attachment of the microbes on the surfaces as wells degrade the biofilms already formed. Also, these materials formed display absence of toxicity, as well as causes little to no immunological reaction in the patients and have slow biodegradation. 

Biomaterials are a significant asset in the healthcare industry. Research & Development of these materials directly correlates to the health of the patients as well as the economics behind manufacturing them. Sustainable and economical materials are always an important aspect in any industry, and the making of these advanced biomaterials using spider silk protein might prove for the same.

Source: Sushma Kumari, Gregor Lang, Elise DeSimone, et al.; Engineered spider silk-based 2D and 3D materials prevent microbial infestation; ScienceDirect; Aug 2020; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mattod.2020.06.009

URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369702120302236

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