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Spider silk has an ice nucleation activity

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Abstract.

Several ice nucleating substances have been identified, which exist in vivo or can be extracted from biological materials. Spider silk, which has a strong ability for water condensation, has also been found to possess an ice nucleation activity. The freezing temperature of water droplets was higher in the presence than in the absence of spider silk. Moreover, by means of environmental scanning electron microscopy, it was observed that the activity is not due to foreign matter attached to the silk but to the silk fibroin itself.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, College of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Denki University, Hatoyama, Hiki-gun, Saitama 350-0394, Japan, , , , ,

    Norio Murase, Masatoshi Ruike, Naoki Matsunaga, Masahiro Hayakawa, Yoshinori Kaneko & Yuzo Ono

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  1. Norio Murase
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  2. Masatoshi Ruike
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  3. Naoki Matsunaga
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  4. Masahiro Hayakawa
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  5. Yoshinori Kaneko
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  6. Yuzo Ono
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Murase, N., Ruike, M., Matsunaga, N. et al. Spider silk has an ice nucleation activity. Naturwissenschaften 88, 117–118 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s001140100205

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s001140100205

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