Figure 1 -.

a) Schematic representation of the design of silk-silica chimeric proteins; R5 domain (blue block) was added to a spider silk 15mer (green block) at the N-terminal end, and a His-tag (H-tag, red block) was added C-terminal end. b) SDS-PAGE of purified silk-silica chimeric R5–15mer-ch (~43 kDa) proteins, run on the 4%−12% Bis-Tris acrylamide gel stained with Simple Blue dye. Marker (M) sizes are indicated on the left. c) Schematic of material preparation: the protein was dissolved in water, casted in cover glass or plastic well plate, water annealed and dried; then biosilicification was induced using silica precursor in buffer. Different pH values are tested to create films covered with silica nanoparticles of different sizes.