Official websites use .gov
A
.gov website belongs to an official
government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you've safely
connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive
information only on official, secure websites.
Possible shapes of spider silk. In nature, spider silk proteins are exclusively converted into silk threads. However, in vitro it is possible to transform silk proteins in other two- or three-dimensional shapes. The figure shows images of a capsule, a sphere, a thread and nano-fibrils (all electron microscopy), as well as a hydrogel and a film (photograph) made by recombinantly produced engineered spider silk protein.35,42,48,71
