Scientists Gene-Hack Spider to Produce Bright-Red Silk

Researchers used the popular gene-editing technique CRISPR to modify the DNA sequences of house spiders, causing them to produce red fluorescent silk. Scientists are hoping that the US Navy and Air Force-funded research could lead to the development of new "supermaterials" produced by arachnids, Fast Company reports. As detailed in a paper published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, a team of researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany injected the eggs of unfertilized female spiders with a CRISPR-Cas9 solution to insert a gene sequence for a red fluorescent protein. After mating with males of the same species, the offspring produced red, fluorescent silk, demonstrating that the experiment had been successful. "Considering the wide range of possible applications, it is surprising that there have been no studies to date using CRISPR-Cas9 in spiders," said senior author and University of Bayreuth professor Thomas Scheibel in a statement. "We have demonstrated, for the first t ... Read full article.