What is silk? Is caterpillar silk the same as spider silk?\nRichard Jones takes a look <\/p>
Silk is a complex protein substance. It has an inner core of fibroin \u2013 a tough, flexible, long-chain polymer \u2013 and an outer, sticky coating of sericin that acts like glue; in the commercial production of moth silk the sericin is removed to enable the fibres to be unravelled and spun together. <\/strong><\/p> Though fibroin has a very complicated molecular structure, it is still \u2013 like all proteins \u2013 a chain of simple building-blocks of amino acids, endlessly repeated. <\/p> Amino acids evolved in living organisms long before caterpillars and spiders diverged, and silk-like proteins are made by many other organisms such as velvet worms (squirted for prey capture), fungus- gnat<\/a> maggots (web tubes to live in), lacewings<\/a> (egg stalks) and weaver-ant grubs (used like glue-sticks to make leaf nests). <\/p> S<\/strong>pider silk is stronger, but otherwise so similar to insect silk that genetically modified silk-moth caterpillars (silkworms) have been bred to create it in a more easily harvestable form. <\/p> What is silk? Is caterpillar silk the same as spider silk?
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