Research on Spider Silk Protein and its Genetic Engineering

Spider silk proteins are important highlighted fibrous proteins because of their unique mechanical and biological properties related to biomaterials and tissue engineering. Cloning and expression of native genes and synthetic artificial variants of the consensus sequence repeats from the native genes encoding spider silk proteins have been accomplished. Expression of recombinant spider silk proteins has been reported in a variety of host systems, including bacteria, yeast, insect cells, mammalian cells and plants. Future utility for these proteins is expected to increase in the field of functional materials and biomedical materials.