Spiders spin strong silk fiber to produce webs. Can bacteria do the similar thing? The Fried lab has demonstrated that Bacillus subtilis can be programmed to autonomously assemble recombinant silk peptides on its own membrane, and then release them as fibers into the extracellular milieu. The process, called secretion-catalyzed assembly, enables coupled synthesis, assembly, and processing of biomaterials by microbes.
