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

John Ankers

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A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image by Konstantin Agladze and colleagues
• Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in PLOS One, March 2015