AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Snails are slimy. That's not a news flash. But there's more to that goo of theirs than meets the eye. It may help inspire the fabrication of new materials. Here's NPR science reporter Ari Daniel.
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: Slime is splattered across the animal kingdom. Tube worms produce mucus that glows. Hagfish can make buckets of slime in an instant. And then there are snails.
MARIELLA GABLER: Snail slime is a natural work of art. Their complexity and functionality are mesmerizing.
DANIEL: Mariella Gabler is a Ph.D. student in physical chemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany, and she and her colleagues wanted to know more about the composition of the slime of a terrestrial species native to Central Europe called the brown-lipped snail.
GABLER: The shell colors are nuances of yellow, white, brown or pink.
DANIEL: These snails produce five types of mucus.
GABLER: For different kinds of purposes.
DANIEL: Each with its own properties. First, there's a sticky yet slippery lubricant mucus used for locomotion, which allows a snail to adhere to a surface while gliding along with minimal friction. Then there are two types of defensive mucus.
GABLER: When it feels stressed or threatened, it can produce either a foam - for example, to wash out small pests - or a sticky glue to immobilize them.
DANIEL: The snails use a protective mucus to seal themselves inside their shells in the winter. And finally, their adhesive mucus allows them to cling to everything from wood to plastic.
GABLER: The versatility makes it a perfect model system to understand how it can tune these different types of mucus according to its needs.
DANIEL: Now, to study snail slime, you need snails.
GABLER: We collected a specimen on a rainy day around the institute. We feed them cucumber and salad.
DANIEL: Then Gabler coaxed the snails to produce each of their five slimes, including the defensive mucuses which she tricked the snails into secreting by tickling them.
GABLER: And then collecting the mucus with a spatula that has a tiny spoon on its end.
DANIEL: Armed with a few drops of each mucus, the researchers analyzed the samples to determine their composition and found they all contain similar proteins but at different concentrations. Plus, distinct amounts of calcium and other ions, along with differences in how the slimes are secreted, give rise to the five varieties of mucus.
GABLER: The more collagen and calcium were present, the stiffer, more cohesive and sticky the mucus became.
DANIEL: The protective mucus, for instance, contained tiny calcite crystals.
GABLER: That induce hardness and brittleness into the material at the same time, making it a perfect mechanical barrier during hibernation.
DANIEL: The research is published in the journal Science.
KAUSIK MUKHOPADHYAY: So there are immense potential applications. It could be cancer research, drug delivery, cosmetics.
DANIEL: Kausik Mukhopadhyay is a materials scientist at the University of Central Florida who wasn't involved in the study. He says the lubricant mucus might be tweaked for use with catheters to help them glide into place in the body with less friction. The adhesive mucus, he says, could be developed into something to help seal a wound. In other words, there's much to learn from a slimy snail.
MUKHOPADHYAY: Nature is always smarter than us. We are just maybe 0.1% to what nature has synthesized. That's where we are right now.
DANIEL: So at least for the moment, the snails still have a head start. Ari Daniel, NPR Ooze (ph).
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