Team:UCLA/Project/Functionalizing Silk
Functionalizing Silk Fibers
Silk fibers possess the potential to be transformed into functional biomaterials that can be exploited in an array of biomedical applications, from aiding nanoscale drug delivery to simulating medical sutures. However, traditional methods of incorporating functional domains into fibers involve difficult, costly, and time-consuming processes. We propose an in vitro, co-spinning method to quickly and efficiently functionalize silk fibers. In essence, we spin a mixture of wild-type silk dope spiked with a small volume of functional domain. This functional domain which will bind to the native silk proteins when co-spun, thereby incorporating itself into the final synthetic fiber. To ensure proper binding of our functional domain, we created a co-spinning module. This module is a genetic construct consisting of our gene of interest flanked on either side by the N and C terminal domains of Bombyx mori (silkworm silk). When co-spun, the termini on our synthetic protein will bind to the respective termini in the native silk proteins, thereby functionalizing the fiber. Our goal is to develop, optimize and experimentally validate our co-spinning module, and assess its potential as a scalable and powerful tool to manufacture silk fibers with an array of functional capacities.
Achievements Successful in vitro co-spin of wild type Bombyx mori silk dope with synthetic protein to produce a fiber that visibly fluoresces! Designed and sequence-verified our novel co-spinning module with super folded GFP, (sfGFP) sandwiched between the N and C terminal domains of Bombyx mori. Successful cloning of co-spinning module with E-coli chassis, and successful amplification of part with Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Successful expression and purification of sfGFP protein with N and C termini attached on either side.