Impact of adding glucose-coated water-soluble silver nanoparticles to the silkworm larval diet on silk protein synthesis and related properties

Synthesis and Processing of Nanomaterials Mediated by Living Organisms

“…[45,50] Complementary to the mechanical upgrade,c arbon-based NMs may also provide novel functional properties to the silk, such as electrical conductivity, [50] ab etter graphitization after pyrolysis, [51,52] or the emergence of ah ighly stable fluorescence. [46,48,55] Another recurrent family of NMs fed to silkworms are metal and metal oxide NPs.R egarding ZMNPs,t he most investigated are Ag NPs, [56][57][58][59] but there are also reports on feeding with Cu [56,60] and Fe [60] NPs.While the mechanical improvements of the silk in these cases do not match those from carbon-based NMs (Figure 3c,d), the actual benefits lie in the conferral of new properties such as ap otent antibacterial effect [57,58] or the electricity harvesting from silk cocoons. [59] As imilar trend is observed for feeding with metal oxide NPs,which in this case are mostly based on TiO 2 [44,60,61] but there are also specific examples with F 3 O 4 , [49] MoS 2 [61] or MoO 2 [62,63] NPs.F or instance,t he excellent UV-absorbing ability of TiO 2 led to UV-resistant silks, [44] the magnetic properties of F 3 O 4 provided intrinsically magnetic silk, [49] and MoO 2 NPs led to an enhancement of specific capacitance in carbonized silk.…”

“…[58,60,62] However, most authors agree that most of the NMs fed to the silkworms are expelled in their excrement. [44,45,51,52,57,58] Therefore,t he real amount eventually integrated into the silk is still elusive and hardly controllable.These findings importantly mean that NMs go through the entire digestive tract, but just asmall part is able to pass this barrier towards the hemolymph, ultimately reaching the silk glands (SG). [42,57,64] Afundamental question arises regarding the fate of NMs inside the silkworm (Figure 3b).…”

Synthesis and Processing of Nanomaterials Mediated by Living Organisms

“…[58,60,62] However, most authors agree that most of the NMs fed to the silkworms are expelled in their excrement. [44,45,51,52,57,58] Therefore,t he real amount eventually integrated into the silk is still elusive and hardly controllable.These findings importantly mean that NMs go through the entire digestive tract, but just asmall part Angewandte is able to pass this barrier towards the hemolymph, ultimately reaching the silk glands (SG). [42,57,64] Afundamental question arises regarding the fate of NMs inside the silkworm (Figure 3b).…”

Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers

“…It has been widely used in the biomedical field, textile industry, and even as an engineering material due to its favorable biocompatibility, controllable biodegradability, lustrous appearance, and excellent mechanical properties [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Various functional components, such as fluorescent proteins [ 5 ], rare-earth upconverting phosphors [ 6 ], antimicrobial agents [ 7 , 8 ], metal ions [ 9 ], metal and semiconductor nanodroplets [ 10 , 11 ], and graphene quantum dots [ 12 , 13 , 14 ], have been used to intrinsically produce functionalized silks. Extrinsic and intrinsic functionalization approaches have been used to improve the performance of silk.…”