Planting a spider's silken web.

Can one really plant a spider's web? Well, the good news is that transgenic plants with the genes for weaving spider silk incorporated in the plants may prove to be viable yarn spinning mills. D. Russell and his team at Monsanto and M. Theisen's lab at Meristem Therapeutics in France have successfully developed plants that can blend the tensile strength of a spider's web with the elegant sheen of silk. Earlier studies in yeast and bacteria have not yielded a comparative rate of success

Plants can process complete spider silk proteins, or spidroins, into long chains. The lucky spider whose genes have gone in to designer mode happens to be the Golden Orb-Weaver spider (Nephil999999a clavipes). Talking about ingenuity, Nexia Biotechnologies Incorporation in Toronto, Canada, milks out some spider silk everyday. The transgenic spider silk called BioSteel is extracted from goat mammary gland cells.

The use of spider silk is being explored as a bio-compatible matrix for wound closure and in vascular wound repair devices, hemostatic dressings, and medical device products. Other uses for spider silk may be in the development of bio-processed polymers for high-strength and high-temperature adhesives for surface coatings.

Each single thread of a spider's web has a tensile strength that is greater than that of steel. So, the next time you wear a shirt or dress with GM labelled on it, remember that GM yarns may be on a different loom altogether, in stark contrast to GM foods.