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.
| 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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