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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Microfluidic Dry-spinning and Characterization of Regenerated Silk Fibroin Fibers
Published on: September 4, 2017
Preparation and characterization of Nephila clavipes tubuliform silk gut
Víctor Ruiz1, Ping Jiang, Claudia Müller
1Centro de Tecnología Biomédica, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28223, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain. jose.perez@ctb.upm.es.
Abstract:
Tubuliform silk glands were dissected from Nephila clavipes spiders, and silk gut fibers were produced by immersing the glands in a mild acid solution and subsequent stretching. The tensile properties of the as produced fibers were obtained through tensile tests, and the stress-strain curves were compared with those of naturally spun tubuliform silk fibers. The influence on the mechanical properties of the fibers after immersion in water and drying was also discerned. The microstructure of the silk guts was obtained by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It was found that the stress-strain curves of the stretched tubuliform silk guts concur with those of their natural counterparts (tubuliform silk fibers).
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