Could Mistletoe Berries Help Produce a Biological Super Glue?
The abundant, biodegradable, and bio renewable mistletoe plant holds promising possibilities for adhesives.
A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany and McGill University in Canada have discovered strong adhesive properties of white-berry mistletoe. The mistletoe berry's flexible fibers adhere to both skin and cartilage as well as to various synthetic materials and could find application in many fields, such as wound sealant in medicine.
Each mistletoe berry can produce up to two meters of a gluey thread called viscin – a natural cellulose adhesive. Viscin allows the seeds of this parasitic plant to stick to and infect host plants. Since ancient times, mistletoe berries have been explored as treatments for everything from infertility and epilepsy to cancer. But, until now, no one has fully investigated the potential medical or technical uses of the glue itself. A recent paper published in PNAS Nexus suggests that through simple processing, viscin’s ultra-stiff flexible fibers could have a range of applications – both biomedical and beyond.