Commercial silkworm silk is presumed to be much weaker and less extensible than spider dragline silk, which has been hailed as a 'super-fibre'. But we show here that the mechanical properties of silkworm silks can approach those of spider dragline silk when reeled under controlled conditions. We suggest that silkworms might be able to produce threads that compare well with spider silk by changing their spinning habits, rather than by having their silk genes altered. Typical commercial silkworm silk from Bombyx mori cocoons has a tensile strength of about 0.5 gigapascals (GPa), a breaking elongation of 15%, and a breaking energy (toughness) of 6 X 10~4 J kg~(-1) (ref. 5). Nephila spider dragline silk, on the other hand, typically has a strength of 1.3 GPa, a breaking elongation of 40%, and a toughness of 16 X10~4 J kg~(-1) (ref. 4).
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机译：据推测，商业蚕丝比蜘蛛吊兰丝弱得多，延伸性也差，后者被誉为“超纤维”。但是我们在这里表明，在受控条件下卷绕时，蚕丝的机械性能可以接近蜘蛛拉丝的机械性能。我们建议，通过改变自身的纺丝习性而不是改变其蚕丝基因，家蚕也许能够产生与蜘蛛丝相当的线。来自家蚕茧的典型商业蚕丝具有约0.5吉帕斯卡（GPa）的拉伸强度，15％的断裂伸长率和6 X 10〜4 J kg〜（-1）的断裂能（韧性）（参考5）。另一方面，Nephila蜘蛛拉丝蚕丝通常具有1.3 GPa的强度，40％的断裂伸长率和16 X10〜4 J kg〜（-1）的韧性（参考文献4）。
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