Production of Silk-Spider Hybrid Silk with Enhanced Mechanical Properties via Recombinant Baculovirus-mediated Expression of MaSp-c in Silkworm Silk Slands
Spider silk's extraordinary strength and toughness make it an ideal biomaterial, but limited production hinders its applications. To overcome this, we utilized a recombinant baculovirus system to express the spider silk protein MaSp-c in silkworm silk glands, aiming to create silk-spider hybrid silk with improved mechanical properties. We optimized MaSp-c codon usage for silkworm expression and constructed an expression cassette containing the MaSp-c gene, a silkworm fibroin light chain signal peptide, and regulatory elements. This cassette was cloned into a baculovirus transfer vector and used to generate recombinant baculovirus AcMNPV-FLP-MaSp-c. Viral inoculation of silkworms resulted in the efficient expression of MaSp-c in the silk glands, yielding silk-spider hybrid silk with an 8.64% MaSp-c protein content. The hybrid silk exhibited significantly enhanced mechanical properties compared to control silk. The hybrid fibers demonstrated a 17.9% decrease in diameter, a 20.7% increase in maximum tensile elongation, a 37.6% enhancement in maximum tensile strength, a 38.5% improvement in Young's modulus, and a 68.8% increase in toughness. These improvements were attributed to increased β-sheet content and crystallinity in the hybrid silk, as confirmed by FTIR, Raman, and XRD analyses. The hybrid silk also showed improved thermal stability compared to control silk. These findings demonstrate the potential of using baculovirus-mediated expression to produce silk-spider hybrid silk with superior mechanical properties, paving the way for developing biomaterials with diverse applications.