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Updated: Feb 25, 2026

Synthetic Spider Silk Production on a Laboratory Scale
Published on: July 18, 2012
Degree of Biomimicry of Artificial Spider Silk Spinning Assessed by NMR Spectroscopy
Martins Otikovs1, Marlene Andersson2, Qiupin Jia3
1Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, Aizkraukles 21, 1006, Riga, Latvia.
Abstract:
Biomimetic spinning of artificial spider silk requires that the terminal domains of designed minispidroins undergo specific structural changes in concert with the β-sheet conversion of the repetitive region. Herein, we combine solution and solid-state NMR methods to probe domain-specific structural changes in the NT2RepCT minispidroin, which allows us to assess the degree of biomimicry of artificial silk spinning. In addition, we show that the structural effects of post-spinning procedures can be examined. By studying the impact of NT2RepCT fiber drying, we observed a reversible beta-to-alpha conversion. We think that this approach will be useful for guiding the optimization of artificial spider silk fibers.
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