Biosynthesis and applications of silk-like and collagen-like proteins

Genetic engineering provides a useful strategy to generate native and designed fibrous proteins, such as silks and collagens, for fundamental and applied studies. Recent studies on biosynthesized spider and silkworm silks, and human collagens, are reviewed with a focus on genes, expression systems and biomaterial applications. Genetically engineered silks and collagens can be exploited for fundamental biophysical studies of the relationships between primary sequence chemistry, self-assembly and structure, as well as processing into new materials. Insights into these relationships are feasible due to the precision of genetic template control of protein polymer details. In addition, these same proteins can be utilized in biomaterials and tissue engineering due to their novel material features as key structural elements in the human body (collagens) and as external spun fibers in Nature (silks).