What is the meaning of our project? What is the public perception of our project? From the beginning of the
IGEM
preparation, we tried to find out the answer. In order to let more people know about our project and explore
the
significance of our project, we conducted human practice, mainly questionnaire survey and expert interview,
to
seek the significance that our project can bring to the society, and to explore how the society will affect
our
project.
đź•·The Project Inspiration
Our project is inspired by the model animal of our college, silkworm, which can change the amount or
toughness
of
silk, color and so on by editing genes or other ways. So we think that spiders which are also spinning
animals
use their webs for hunting and other activities. In addition, spider silk is very thin, which is a tenth of
the
hair, but its toughness is better than the same thickne
.ss of steel wire. As a result, improving the toughness of
spider silk has a very broad research prospect.
🔍The Background Research
With the purpose of our investigation, we looked up relevant literature and found that some scholars had
searched
for genes related to improving the toughness of spider silk through experiments and bioinformatics analysis.
Consequently, we summarized the viewpoints of various scholars and found two genes, fused the spider silk of
non-Araneoidea with the proteins of these two genes, and conducted wire drawing experiments. To see if
resilience is enhanced.
🧢The Expert Interviews
We asked the instructor of this project, Mr. Wang Yi, who has been engaged in related research recently. Our
project received great support from him. He told us that our project was feasible and gave us a lot of
guidance
on the experiment.
🎧The Experimental design
The technical route design of the project is as follows: the codon is optimized for whole gene synthesis,
then
the transformed strain is constructed, the expressed protein is purified, and the spider silk is extracted,
dissolved and dialyzed, the expressed protein is added to make a mixture, and the "mixed silk" is obtained
by in
vitro spinning technology to determine whether its performance is improved by adding the expressed protein.
In
the experiment, a non-aranidae spider was selected, which was easy to obtain, easy to feed and easy to
operate.
The spider silk was extracted from its tail, dissolved and broken by lithium bromide, and then removed by
PBS
replacement protein solution for the purpose of dialysis purification. Finally, new gene expression proteins
were added for mixed incubation. In the process of the experiment, repeated exploration was carried out to
find
the best experimental conditions. The optimized scheme was as follows: the protein concentration of the
spinning
stock (250-350 mg/mL), the capillary diameter used to collect spider silk (30-70 µm), the buffer
concentration
(250-1000 mM, pH 5), and the buffer was monovalent acetate; More and better experimental conditions need to
be
further explored and tried. Finally, the properties of the experimental silk will be measured by polarizing
light microscope, scanning electron microscope, tensile testing machine and other tools to determine the
function of the new gene expression protein.
đź’»The questionnaire survey
The instructor and the partners in the project agreed that our project was meaningful and feasible. In order
to
obtain more support and recognition, the public’s understanding of spider silk and suggestions. We designed
questionnaires to understand public opinion and attitudes towards our project. The results show that 50.68%
of
people believe that spider silk could be used as raw material to produce products with greater toughness.
And
77% of people are acceptable to use spider silk as raw material products.
â… . Question: What was your initial impression of spider silk?
â…ˇ. Question: Do you think that using spider silk as raw material can produce products with greater toughness?
â…˘. Question: When you think of silk, what creature comes to mind?
â…Ł. Question: Can you accept products made from spider silk?
â…¤. Question: What do you think can be applied to the modification of spider silk?
â…Ą. Question: Whether you have expectations for spider silk and are willing to buy related products?
đź“•Integrated Human Practice
👉Our project is inspired by the model organism of our college, the silkworm, and then associated with the
spider, the human practice gives us confidence that our project is meaningful and feasible.
👉Many scientists are doing research on improving the toughness of spider silk, and we looked at the
relevant
literature and found two genes related to spider toughness.
👉After the interview with Teacher Wang Yi, our project was affirmed and supported. At the same time, he
put
forward some suggestions for our experimental design.
👉Finally, we conducted a questionnaire survey, and found that more than half of the people have
expectations
for our project, and its products can be applied to many fields, which has far-reaching significance. But in
terms of buying, we may need to think further.