Spider Web Glue Spins toward New Biobased Adhesives
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| A sticky substance in spider webs may lead to the development of a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues that could replace some petroleum-based products. Courtesy of Randolph Femmer, National Biological Information Infrastructure |
With would-be goblins and ghosts set to drape huge fake spider webs over doorways and trees for Halloween, scientists in Wyoming are reporting on a long-standing mystery about the real thing — the secret of spider web glue. Their findings are an advance toward a new generation of biobased adhesives and glues — “green” glues that replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses.
Omer Choresh and colleagues note that much research has been done on spider web silk, which rivals steel in its strength. However, scientists know comparatively little about web glue, which coats the silk threads and is among the world’s strongest biological glues. Past studies revealed that spiders make web glue from glycoproteins, or proteins with bits of sugar attached.
The scientists analyzed web glue from the golden orb weaving spider, noted for spinning intricate webs. They identified two new glycoproteins in the glue and showed that domains of these proteins were produced from opposite strands of the same DNA.
A report on the study appears in the October issue of ACS’ Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.
“Once the cloned genes are over expressed in systems, such as insect or bacterial cell cultures, large-scale production of the glycoprotein can be used to develop a new biobased glue for a variety of purposes,” the report notes.
