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Webbed Beat
08 May 2015

Webbed Beat

Researchers looking for new ways to grow heart tissue have found an unlikely ally – the garden spider. Pictured here, rat cardiac muscle cells (stained in green with their nuclei in blue), are growing happily on strands of spider silk (red). The silk was spun in a laboratory from spidroins – tough proteins found inside orb-weaver spiders (from the family Araneidae). Growing tissue outside of the body is usually a tricky business, requiring a cocktail of chemicals to make the surroundings less toxic and more biocompatible. But the silky spidroins are naturally biocompatible, with some of the added advantages a spider enjoys – the silk is strong, elastic and easy to shape into flexible scaffolds. These heart cells not only attached to the spidery scaffolds but also fused together as they would inside the body, and even began to ‘beat’ – raising hopes for a bright future for spidroins inside the human heart.

Written by John Ankers

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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