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Engineering








(1)

New gene selection


Get the protein added to the spider silk can enhance the performance



(2)

Wire drawing


Obtain the experimental material:The use of rotating instruments to drive wire drawing, tweezers from the tail of the spider to take out the spider silk fixed to the instrument, the instrument rotates, constantly pull out the spider silk.

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Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of spider drawing steps. (Arndt T et al, Adv Funct Mater, 2022)


Additionally, as an innovation point, we designed a wire-drawing machine. After extensive literature review and experimental design, according to the rich experimental experience in the field of spider silk material research, we designed such an experimental device which is convenient for drawing wire (Figure 2) . The visible silk thread is pulled out from the fixed spider tail with tweezers and placed on the white roller. After power is applied, the roller will turn clockwise at a suitable speed so that the spider silk can be continuously pulled out, freeing the hands of the experimenter and saving the experiment time.

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Fig. 2 Spider drawing device real thing.



(3)

Dissolve silk fibroin


Degumming after preparing solution with chemical reagents, and then dissolved with lithium bromide at 4 nights.

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Fig. 3 Dissolution of silk fibroids.



(4)

Dialysis


Leave it to the company,doing something about fibroin protein purification by dialysis.



(5)

Performance measurement



(1)Slide detection

Observing changes under an electron microscope: Wash the slide, cover slide and wipe them clean. After the egg whites have melted, mix them with the silk fibroin solution and drop at least on the slide. Cover the cover slide and place it under the microscope for observation and photo recording. The average size and diameter of the aggregated protein crystals were measured by scanning electron microscopy.

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    Fig. 4 Microscopic examination apparatus for slide experiments.
    Fig. 5 Schematic diagram of the slide experimental testing process.

    (2) Raman spectra

    Raman spectrum statistics of secondary structure changes: Raman spectroscopy is very sensitive to molecular bonding and the structure of the sample, so each molecule or sample has its own spectral signature. These markers can be used for further study and analysis of the secondary structure of different samples in the experimental group.

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      Fig. 6 Raman spectrum statistics of secondary structure changes.