Genetically modified spiders may create super-materials

The U.S. military is interested in ‘super spiders’ capable of producing silk with extraordinary features.

Excerpt: " Researchers funded by the U.S. Navy have used gene-editing technology to make house spiders produce red fluorescent silk. This might seem like a quirky scientific novelty, but the breakthrough is a critical step toward modifying spider silk properties and creating new “supermaterials” for industries ranging from textiles to aerospace.

The team at Germany’s University of Bayreuth, led by Professor Thomas Scheibel, successfully applied CRISPR-Cas9—a molecular tool that acts as “genetic scissors” to cut and modify DNA sequences—to spiders for the first time. The study, published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie, demonstrates how this technology introduces modifications that enhance the extraordinary properties of spider silk, turning it into a next-generation supermaterial. In a press release, professor Thomas Scheibel, chair of biomaterials at the University of Bayreuth and senior author of the study, said, “Considering the wide range of possible applications, it is surprising that there have been no studies to date using CRISPR-Cas9 in spiders.”

His team injected a solution containing CRISPR-Cas9 components into female Parasteatoda tepidariorum, a common house spider species. To facilitate the process, the spiders were anesthetized with carbon dioxide and manually held under a microscope. The solution, which included a gene encoding a red fluorescent protein (called mRFP), was delivered into the eggs within the females’ abdomens before mating with males so the resulting baby spiders could carry the gene modification.