Each mistletoe berry can produce up to two meters of a gluey thread called viscin. It 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 from McGill University and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, published in PNAS Nexus, suggests that through simple processing, viscin’s ultra-stiff flexible fibers, which adhere to both skin and cartilage as well as to various synthetic materials, could have a range of applications—both biomedical and beyond.
Click here for original story, Mistletoe berries may hold the secret for creating a biological super glue
Source: Phys.org