The rheological properties of native sericin

Unlike spider silk, spinning silkworm silk has the added intricacy of being both fibre and micron-thick glue-like coating. Whilst the natural flow properties of the fibre feedstock fibroin are now becoming more established, our understanding of the coating sericin is extremely limited and thus presents both a gap in our knowledge and a hindrance to successful exploitation of these materials. In this study we characterise sericin feedstock from the silkworm Bombyx mori in its native state and by employing both biochemical, rheological and spectroscopic tools, define a natural gold standard. Our results demonstrate that native sericin behaves as a viscoelastic shear thinning fluid, but that it does so at a considerably lower viscosity than its partner fibroin, and that its upper critical shear rate (onset of gelation) lies above that of fibroin. Together these findings provide the first evidence that in addition to acting as a binder in the construction of the cocoon, sericin is capable of lubricating the flow of fibroin within the silk gland, which has implications for future processing, modelling and biomimetic use of these materials.

This study addresses one of the major gaps in our knowledge regarding natural silk spinning by providing rigorous rheological characterisation of the other major protein involved - sericin. This allows progress in silk flow modelling, biomimetic system design, and in assessing the quality of bioinspired and waste sericin materials by providing a better understanding of the native, undegraded system.