A team of U.S. Navy scientists and engineers aboard Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) have successfully recreated a natural material used for marine wildlife defense to assist military personnel.
Biochemist Dr. Josh Kogot and Materials Engineer Dr. Ryan Kincer have produced a synthetic component of hagfish slime from the alpha and gamma proteins of the Pacific hagfish.
The Pacific hagfish, also known as slime eels, are bottom dwelling scavengers that live on the ocean floor. The hagfish can secrete slime to protect themselves by obstructing the gills of predators that come into contact with the slime.
According to Kincer, hagfish slime consists of two protein based components – a thread and a mucin.
“The coiled up thread behaves like a spring and quickly unravels upon contact with water due to stored energy. The mucin binds to water and constrains the flow between the micro channels created by the thread dispersion. The interaction between the thread, mucin and seawater creates a three-dimensional viscoelastic network,” said Kincer. “Over time, the thread begins to collapse on itself causing the slime to slowly dissipate. Studies have shown the hagfish secretion can expand up to 10,000 times its initial volume.”
The hagfish slime thread has been compared to spider silk. Both are natural, renewable materials that could one day replace synthetic products derived from petroleum based precursors. Kogot said the slime thread has comparable mechanical properties to Kevlar, a synthetic fiber used as a reinforcing agent for rubber products and protective gear.
During synthetic recreation, alpha and gamma proteins are produced in an Escherichia coli bacteria, or E.coli, where each protein is recovered from the bacteria after a series of isolation and purification steps. The alpha and gamma proteins were later combined together and rapidly assembled in a crosslinking solution. A sample of natural and synthetic hagfish threads were compared using a scanning electron microscope to visually confirm the production of the synthetic threads.
The intended use of the synthetic slime is to provide non-lethal and non-kinetic defense to the Fleet.
“The synthetic hagfish slime may be used for ballistics protection, firefighting, anti-fouling, diver protection or anti-shark spray. The possibilities are endless”, said Kogot. “Our goal is to produce a substance that can act as nonlethal and non-kinetic defense to protect the warfighter.”
Kincer said the addition of using a material such as the slime will be valuable to the U.S. Navy.
“Researchers have called the hagfish slime one of the most unique biomaterials known. For the U.S. Navy to have its hands on it or a material that acts similar would be beneficial,” said Kincer. “From a tactical standpoint, it would be interesting to have a material that can change the properties of the water at dilute concentrations in a matter of seconds.”
The effort to create new synthetic means to behave like the natural hagfish slime is supported by Navy Innovative Science and Engineering (NISE) funding and the Office of Naval Research Code 32, Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department. The team is researching ways to increase the slime’s surface attachment capability, potential delivery systems and enhanced stability in various environments. From there, Kogot and Kincer will continue to look for innovative applications and explore different variations and properties of the material.
They are currently working to increase the slime protein scale and improve protein assembly.
| Date Taken: | 01.10.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 01.11.2017 16:49 |
| Story ID: | 219930 |
| Location: | PANAMA CITY, FL, US |
| Web Views: | 142 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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