Spider Glue Research (2 of 2) (IMAGE)
Caption
Sarah Stellwagen of UMBC, center, discusses spider biology with two undergraduate students she works with. Her recent research with Army Research Lab colleague Rebecca Renberg, published in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, determined the first-ever complete sequences of two spider glue genes. One gene was more than twice as long as any previously sequenced spider silk gene. Spider glue is a modified version of spider silk that forms droplets on a spider's web to keep its prey stuck in place. If it could be produced at an industrial scale, spider glue could be useful as an organic pest control or for other applications. And making spider glue in a lab might be easier than producing silk, because the glue is a liquid both inside and outside the spider, while silk undergoes a complicated, hard-to-replicate process to turn it from a liquid into the fibers we see. Stellwagen and Renberg relied on "third-generation" sequencing techniques to determine the sequence of the glue genes, which in addition to their length are extremely repetitive, making it hard to determine the final, complete, sequence.
Credit
Marlayna Demond for UMBC
Usage Restrictions
with credit
License
Licensed content