By Robert Derham, Checkbiotech

If watching Spiderman swing through the city in movies and on TV perks your interests, then Dr. Conrad will be sure to catch you in his web of potatoes.

The sight of a spider web can freeze some people in their tracks, while others choose to sell pictures or paintings of them as works of art. Yet, most of us have at least, at some point in time, stopped to ponder the unique physical properties of the silk that spiders use to spin their fascinating webs.

The light-weight fibers of spider webs have the ability to support objects that weigh a thousand times more than fiber’s weight. The spider silk proteins that spiders use to make their webs of wonder are referred to as spidroins. The protein consists largely of glycine and alanine amino acids, and its physical strength rivals that of Kevlar. Yet, unlike Kevlar, spider silk is not only strong, it has an high level of elasticity and heat stability—making it a Holy Grail for scientist to try and mimic and reproduce.

Dr. Udo Conrad and his research team at the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben, Germany, have a similar fascination with spider silk, although their work transcends all others. In 2001, they took the world by surprise, when they published their research in Nature Biotechnology about how they were able to enhance potatoes and tobacco plants so that they would produce a spider silk protein.

Then in February of 2004, Dr. Conrad published in Transgenic Research about how his research team was able to produce a gene (SO1-100xELP) consisting of two genes fused to one another. The SO1 part of the gene was synthetically produced, and mimics the repetitive part of a gene (MaSpI) from a species of spiders called, Nephila clavipes. 100xELP is also a synthetic gene, and it is similar in nature to the human protein, elastin.

Dr. Conrad’s publication in Transgenic Research focused on how in laboratory trials, his genetically engineered potatoes plants were able to produce the silk-like protein in potatoes. Then, after harvesting the potatoes, his research team was able to successfully extract the protein from the potatoes in a process that can be easily reproduced for mass production purposes.

However, do not expect to see people swinging through the city and scaling the walls of buildings—that will remain Spiderman’s responsibility. Dr. Conrad’s team actually has tested their protein for medical purposes. They showed that when their protein was applied to cells, it helped the cells grow into patterns that were more similar to patterns found in human tissues.

With that in mind, it would be possible to use Dr. Conrad’s unique protein as a possible treatment for wounds and surgeries, to help in transplant operations, or possibly as a collagen replacement for worn out joints.

The next step now is to grow the genetically engineered potatoes in the field—and they will get their chance. After much time and effort, the team’s genetically modified potato plants with the SO1-100xELP gene have been approved to be put to the test in field trials.

The field trials will give the researchers a better idea about how well their potatoes can survive environmental elements. Then, it will be import to see if the protein can still be extracted from the potatoes, after the potatoes have been harvested from the field trials.

In addition, Dr. Conrad’s laboratory has taken several safety precautions to ensure that no other potato plants will be grown in the vicinity of the field trials, and that no genetic material will be transferred to other plants. The results of the field trials should be ready towards the end of this year. Production of spider silk proteins in tobacco and potato http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/89335 Purification of Spider Silk-elastin from Transgenic Plants and Application for Human Chondrocyte Proliferation

Source: Kluwer Online