Silk structure

Silk structure. Redrawn from F. Vollrath, 1992

Typically, a spider's silk line is only about 0.001 - 0.004 mm thick. It is made up of different spidroin proteins whose structures provide silk with unique properties. Silk fibres get their stretchiness from the disordered, loose, coil-like protein chains of glycine peptides (amino acids) that stretch when pulled, giving silk its elasticity; and it gets stiffness and strength from highly ordered, 'brick-like' protein crystals of alanine peptides that are spread throughout the silk line. The structural properties of different silks vary with the composition and arrangement of these proteins.

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