Freeze Dried Fish Scale Collagen: A Potential Matrix for Tissue Engineering and Wound Dressing

ollagen, most abundant protein in animal body, is widely used for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications owing to its resemblance with ECM component, cell attachment capabilities, excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and weak antigenicity. However, its applicability is limited due to high cost and probability of disease transmission from the source. Fish processing waste is a promising cost effective collagen source, which otherwise cause serious environmental pollution. In the present study, collagen was isolated from scales of Labe rohita (Rohu) and Catla catla (Catla) through demineralization followed by extraction using dilute acetic acid with similar to 5 wt% yield. The isolated protein was confirmed as collagen by different physico-chemical techniques like FTIR. SDS-PAGE, and CD. A major characteristic of obtained collagen was its denaturation temperature (T-d), 36.5 degrees C, which is promising for biomedical application due to its closeness to mammalian collagen. Further, scaffolds were prepared from the isolated collagen by lyophillization and characterized by different physico-chemical viz., microscopy, FTIR, mechanical properties and porosity to evaluate their suitability in tissue engineering/wound dressing application.