Spider Silk - Research Milestones

Research Milestones

Due to spider silk being a scientific research field with a long and rich history, there can be unfortunate occurrences of researchers independently rediscovering previously published findings. What follows is a table of the discoveries made in each of the constituent areas, acknowledged by the scientific community as being relevant and significant by using the metric of scientific acceptance, citations. Thus, only papers with 50 or more citations are included.

Table of significant papers (50 or more citations)
Area of contribution Year Main researchers Title of paper Contribution to the field
Chemical Basis 1960 Fischer, F. & Brander, J. "Eine Analyse der Gespinste der Kreuzspinne" (Amino acid composition analysis of spider silk)
1960 Lucas, F. & et al. "The Composition of Arthropod Silk Fibrons; Comparative studies of fibroins"
Gene Sequence 1990 Xu, M. & Lewis, R. V. "Structure of a Protein Superfiber - Spider Dragline Silk"
Mechanical Properties 1964 Lucas, F. "Spiders and their silks" First time compared mechanical properties of spider silk with other materials in a scientific paper.
1989 Vollrath, F. & Edmonds, D. T. "Modulation of the Mechanical Properties of Spider Silk by Coating with Water" First important paper suggesting the water interplay with spider silk fibroin modulating the properties of silk.
2001 Vollrath, F. & Shao, Z.Z. "The effect of spinning conditions on the mechanics of a spider's dragline silk"
Structural Characterization 1992 Hinman, M.B. & Lewis, R. V "Isolation of a clone encoding a second dragline silk fibroin. Nephila clavipes dragline silk is a two-protein fiber"
1994 Simmons, A. & et al. "Solid-State C-13 Nmr of Nephila-Clavipes Dragline Silk Establishes Structure and Identity of Crystalline Regions" First NMR study of spider silk.
1999 Shao, Z., Vollrath, F. & et al. "Analysis of spider silk in native and supercontracted states using Raman spectroscopy" First Raman study of spider silk.
1999 Riekel, C., Muller, M.& et al. "Aspects of X-ray diffraction on single spider fibers" First X-ray on single spider silk fibers.
2000 Knight, D.P., Vollrath, F. & et al. "Beta transition and stress-induced phase separation in the spinning of spider dragline silk" Secondary structural transition confirmation during spinning.
2001 Riekel, C. & Vollrath, F. "Spider silk fibre extrusion: combined wide- and small-angle X- ray microdiffraction experiments" First X-ray on spider silk dope.
2002 Van Beek, J. D. & et al. "The molecular structure of spider dragline silk: Folding and orientation of the protein backbone"
Structure-Property Relationship 1986 Gosline, G.M. & et al. "The structure and properties of spider silk" First attempt to link structure with properties of spider silk
1994 Termonia, Y "Molecular Modeling of Spider Silk Elasticity" X-ray evidence presented in this paper; simple model of crystallites embedded in amorphous regions.
1996 Simmons, A. & et al. "Molecular orientation and two-component nature of the crystalline fraction of spider dragline silk" Two types of alanine-rich crystalline regions were defined.
2006 Vollrath, F. & Porter, D. "Spider silk as an archetypal protein elastomer" New insight and model to spider silk based on Group Interaction Modelling.
Native Spinning 1991 Kerkam, K., Kaplan, D. & et al. "Liquid Crystallinity of Natural Silk Secretions"
1999 Knight, D.P. & Vollrath, F. "Liquid crystals and flow elongation in a spider's silk production line"
2001 Vollrath, F. & Knight, D.P. "Liquid crystalline spinning of spider silk" The most cited paper on spider silk
Reconstituted /Synthetic Spider Silk and Artificial Spinning 1995 Prince, J. T., Kaplan, D. L. & et al. "Construction, Cloning, and Expression of Synthetic Genes Encoding Spider Dragline Silk" First successful synthesis of Spider silk by E. coli.
1998 Arcidiacono, S., Kaplan, D.L. & et al. "Purification and characterization of recombinant spider silk expressed in Escherichia coli"
1998 Seidel, A., Jelinski, L.W. & et al. "Artificial Spinning of Spider Silk" First controlled wet-spinning of reconstituted spider silk.

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