The Physicochemical Properties of Fish Collagen in Regenerative Medicine

We have already examined various utilities of some biomaterial for the tissue engineering among indispensable three elements with cells, scaffolds, and the nutrients in the regeneration medicine. Then, we have researched a fish collagen (FC) as the tissue engineering scaffold about the physics and chemical properties.

Method:

Fish type I atelocollagen prepared from tilapia skin was kindly supplied by Nippi Biomatrix Institute (Ibaragi, Japan). The adjusted to 0.5wt%, 1wt% and 2wt% FC dissolved in 5mM acetic acid solution were used for the following biological experiments.

The degeneration temperature of the FC solution of various densities was measured with the differential scanning calorimetry before and after gellation.

 FC scaffolds were fabricated by a thermally-induced phase separation method. The ultimate tensile strength of the sponge form sample in the wet state was measured by a universal testing machine.

The surface and internal microstructure of the FC sponge of the various densities solution were examined using a digital microscope

Result:

The degeneration temperature that influenced physical properties of collagen was about 35°C at each density, moreover, after it’s gellation, it was able to be confirmed to rise to about 40°C.

The tensile strength values were evaluated 0.07 ± 0.01, 0.12 ± 0.03, and 0.44 ± 0.08MPa for 0.5wt%, 1 wt%, and 2 wt%, respectively as the mechanical properties.

FC sponges had clearly porous form and the pores were interconnected, the average diameter of the pores was 120 𝜇m for the 0.5wt% FC sponge, 220𝜇m for the 1wt% FC, and 300𝜇m for the 2wt% FC.

Conclusion: We have confirmed that a degeneration temperature of tilapia that was a fish in a tropical region was high more than being expected, therefore it was suggested that the possibility of the application to the living body was by adjusting the gellation and the crosslinking.