CAREER: Evolutionary Origins of High Performance Major Ampullate Spider Silk: Development of an Integrated Bioscience Training Program

职业：高性能主要壶腹蜘蛛丝的进化起源：综合生物科学培训计划的开发

• 批准号: 0745379
• 负责人: Todd Blackledge
• 金额: $ 58.92万
• 依托单位: University of Akron
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0745379&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Evolutionary; Origins; Performance; Major

Spiders are among the most diverse animals on earth due, in part, to the exceptional properties of their silk. These properties are epitomized by orb weaving spiders that spin the backbones of their webs using dragline silk, which has a high tensile strength and extreme toughness, exceeding that of Kevlar®. Thus, orb weaving dragline silk is an important model for materials science. Nevertheless, it is an ancient silk and many other spider lineages also spin dragline silk. This project seeks to understand how dragline silk evolved such astonishing physical characteristics by focusing on its evolutionary change at the genetic, biomechanical, and ecological levels. Objective 1 compares the structure and function of dragline silk from ancient lineages of spiders to tarantulas, which spin a primitive type of silk. Objective 2 examines supercontraction, a novel property of dragline silk that may allow spiders to control fiber spinning, and tests key hypotheses about when it evolved and what causes it. Finally, Objective 3 tests the role of ecological changes in dragline silk use as a force shaping the evolution of its material properties. This project will yield a better understanding of a biomaterial critical to the success of a mega-diverse lineage of animals and also provide valuable insight for the synthesis of biomimetic dragline silk analogs. The project will also play a key role in the development of the University of Akron's brand new PhD program in Integrative Bioscience by directly supporting and training students and by serving as a "hands on" case study of integrative research that will be followed by the first cohorts of these Integrative Bioscience students.

蜘蛛是地球上种类最多的动物之一，部分原因是它们的丝具有特殊的特性。这些特性的缩影是球状编织蜘蛛，它们使用牵引丝旋转其网的主干，具有高拉伸强度和极高的韧性，超过了芳纶®。因此，球织牵引丝是材料科学的重要模型。尽管如此，它是一种古老的丝和许多其他蜘蛛谱系也纺拖丝。这个项目试图通过关注其在遗传、生物力学和生态水平上的进化变化，来了解牵引丝是如何进化出如此惊人的物理特征的。目的1比较古代蜘蛛和蜘蛛牵引丝的结构和功能，狼蛛是一种原始类型的丝。目标2研究了超收缩，这是拖丝的一种新特性，可能会让蜘蛛控制纤维纺丝，并测试关于它何时进化以及是什么导致它的关键假说。最后，目标3测试了拖丝使用中的生态变化作为塑造其材料特性演变的力量所起的作用。该项目将对生物材料有更好的了解，这种材料对动物物种的巨大多样性至关重要，也为合成仿生牵引丝类似物提供了有价值的见解。该项目还将在阿克伦大学全新的综合生物科学博士项目的发展中发挥关键作用，直接支持和培训学生，并作为综合研究的“亲身实践”案例研究，这些综合生物科学专业的第一批学生将遵循这一案例。