Speaker
Description
Spider silk (SPSI) has been established as one of nature’s most fascinating materials due to its unique properties. A remarkable application of the SPSI is its use as nerve guidance structure. The Schwann cells (SCs), which are a crucial part of the nerve regeneration process adhere to SPSI and migrate along it to support axonal elongation. SPSI degrades without inflammatory response or physiological pH changes. However, the interaction between the SCs and the silk are still unclear.
Not all spider silks show the same success, and we believe that properties such as composition, ultrastructure, and mechanical behavior have influence on the acceptance of SPSI by SCs. By combining experiments consisting of in vitro studies and the material characterization of various SPSIs, the properties, which are responsible for the advanced success of SPSI in nerve regeneration, will be clarified.
The SPSI used in this experiment were: Nephila edulis and Avicularia avicularia MAG native and treated with ethanol, UV light and autoclaved.
For the tensile tests, one fibre of the SPSI was extracted and mounted with nailpolish on a 3D printed sample holder. Spiders were fixated and sedated to ensure a homogeneous sample collection under forced spinning conditions. Prior to the tensile strength tests, the length of the spider silk has been recorded with a lightmicroscope.
For the measurement the thin side supports of the sample carrier are removed with a soldering iron, so that only the thread is under tension.
The spidersilk was pulled with a speed of 25µm/s until terminal rupture on an ASMEC Unat nanoindenter in tensile mode in high vaccum mode of the SEM, while the silk was pulled, micrographs of the process were recorded. The collected rawdata was processed in python.
The morphology and the size of SPSI were observed after the tensile test with SEM.
| Speaker Country | Austria |
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