Synthetic biology increases efficiency of Escherichia coli to produce Parawixia bistriata spider silk protein

Background Spider dragline silk is considered to be the toughest biopolymer on Earth due to an extraordinary combination of strength and elasticity. With synthetic biology it is possible to express recombinant spider silk proteins, which are characterized by a highly repetitive rich glycine and alanine sequence [1]. However, production of high molecular weight spider silk protein can be difficult due to DNA instability, transcription and translation errors. Here we show, for the first time, Masp2 (105 kDa) spidroin silk protein production from the Brazilian spider Parawixia bistriata in different metabolically engineered E.coli strains.