Biomaterials, having evolved over millions of years, often exceed man-made materials in their properties. Spider silk is one outstanding fibrous biomaterial which consists almost entirely of large proteins. Silk fibers have tensile strengths comparable to steel and some silks are nearly as elastic as rubber on a weight to weight basis. In combining these two properties, silks reveal a toughness that is two to three times that of synthetic fibers like Nylon or Kevlar. Spider silk is also antimicrobial, hypoallergenic and completely biodegradable. This article focuses on the structure-function relationship of the characterized highly repetitive spider silk spidroins and their conformational conversion from solution into fibers. Such knowedge is of crucial importance to understanding the intrinsic properties of spider silk and to get insight into the sophisticated assembly processes of silk proteins. This review further outlines recent progress in recombinant production of spider silk proteins and their assembly into distinct polymer materials as a basis for novel products.

中文翻译：

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蜘蛛丝的精细结构：天然高性能纤维的结构和功能。

生物材料已经进化了数百万年，其性能通常超过人造材料。蜘蛛丝是一种出色的纤维生物材料，几乎完全由大蛋白质组成。丝纤维的抗拉强度可与钢媲美，某些丝的弹性几乎与橡胶一样。结合这两种特性，丝绸的韧性是尼龙或凯夫拉等合成纤维的 2 到 3 倍。蜘蛛丝还具有抗菌性、低过敏性和完全可生物降解性。本文重点介绍了特征高度重复的蜘蛛丝蜘蛛蛋白的结构-功能关系及其从溶液到纤维的构象转换。这些知识对于理解蜘蛛丝的内在特性和深入了解丝蛋白的复杂组装过程至关重要。本综述进一步概述了蜘蛛丝蛋白重组生产及其组装成不同聚合物材料作为新产品基础的最新进展。