Wan, Q., Yang, M., Hu, J. et al. (6 more authors) (2021) Mesoscale structure development reveals when a silkworm silk is spun. Nature Communications, 12 (1). 3711.
Abstract
Silk fibre mechanical properties are attributed to the development of a multi-scale hierarchical structure during spinning. By careful ex vivo processing of a B. mori silkworm silk solution we arrest the spinning process, freezing-in mesoscale structures corresponding to three distinctive structure development stages; gelation, fibrilization and the consolidation phase identified in this work, a process highlighted by the emergence and extinction of ‘water pockets’. These transient water pockets are a manifestation of the interplay between protein dehydration, phase separation and nanofibril assembly, with their removal due to nanofibril coalescence during consolidation. We modeled and validated how post-draw improves mechanical properties and refines a silk’s hierarchical structure as a result of consolidation. These insights enable a better understanding of the sequence of events that occur during spinning, ultimately leading us to propose a robust definition of when a silkworm silk is actually ‘spun’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Engineering and Physical Science Research Council EP/K005693/1; EP/N008065/1 The Royal Society IEC\NSFC\181308 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 08 Jul 2021 07:27 |
Last Modified: | 08 Jul 2021 07:27 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-021-23960-w |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175416 |