Aquaponics-Derived Tilapia Skin Collagen for Biomaterials Development

Abstract

Collagen is one of the most widely used biomaterials in health-related sectors. The industrial production of collagen mostly relies on its extraction from mammals, but several issues limited its use. In the last two decades, marine organisms attracted interest as safe, abundant, and alternative source for collagen extraction. In particular, the possibility to valorize the huge quantity of fish industry waste and byproducts as collagen source reinforced perception of fish collagen as eco-friendlier and particularly attractive in terms of profitability and cost-effectiveness. Especially fish byproducts from eco-sustainable aquaponics production allow for fish biomass with additional added value and controlled properties over time. Among fish species, Oreochromis niloticus is one of the most widely bred fish in large-scale aquaculture and aquaponics systems. In this work, type I collagen was extracted from aquaponics-raised Tilapia skin and characterized from a chemical, physical, mechanical, and biological point of view in comparison with a commercially available analog. Performed analysis confirmed that the proprietary process optimized for type I collagen extraction allowed to isolate pure native collagen and to preserve its native conformational structure. Preliminary cellular studies performed with mouse fibroblasts indicated its optimal biocompatibility. All data confirmed the eligibility of the extracted Tilapia-derived native type I collagen as a biomaterial for healthcare applications.

Collagen Membrane as Water-Based Gel Electrolyte for Electrochromic Devices

“…The mechanical properties of uncrosslinked films in H 2 SO 4 were not assessed because of its almost complete dissolution in sulfuric acid that did not allow for handling and clamping it in a tensile-test-machine tool. As expected, the stress-strain curves of matrices were all characterized by a linear elastic region, followed by a non-elastic region and a rupture region ( Figure 5 ) [ 31 , 40 ]. The constitutive bond of the uncrosslinked matrix was found to be statistically different from that of the cross-linked matrices in terms of E and εr ( Table 3 ).…”

“…To investigate in-depth collagen secondary structure in the matrices after the production process, five contributions were identified from amide I deconvolution ( Figure 2 ). In particular, β-sheet (peak center: 1610–1642 cm −1 ), random coil (peak center: 1642–1650 cm −1 ), α-helix (peak center: 1650–1660 cm −1 ), β-turn (peak center 1660–1680 cm −1 ), and β-antiparallel (peak center 1680–1700 cm –1 ) components were detected ( Table 1 ) [ 38 , 39 , 40 ]. The increase of the β-sheets component in cross-linked samples could be explained by assuming the formation of bonds among collagen molecules that are laterally associated that spectroscopically mimic β-sheet structures [ 41 , 42 ].…”

“…FT-IR was performed using FTIR-6300 from Jasco GmbH (Pfungstadt, Germany) on 1 × 1 cm collagen membranes. Absorption spectra were recorded in the range 4000–400 cm −1 at a resolution of 4 cm −1 and smoothed according to the Savitsky–Golay method [ 31 , 40 ]. Three samples for each sample type were scanned, and each spectrum was collected as an average of 64 scans.…”

Collagen: An Overview from Past to Future Applications

“…Several marine species are used, where specific organs and tissues of these marine lives are taken to gain the molecule. The different species and their locations on how to secure natural collagen are summarized in Table 1 (Gallo et al, 2022;Geahchan et al, 2022;Niculescu et al, 2019;Sorrentino et al, 2022). Although marine-sourced collagen output a higher yield, and is considered as the finer alternative, it falls short in thermal stability (Sorrentino et al, 2022).…”

Chondroitin Sulfate from Oreochromis niloticus Waste Reduces Leukocyte Influx in an Acute Peritonitis Model

“…Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) is one of the main products obtained by global aquaculture; it is estimated that 6.5 million tons are produced annually, and an average annual growth of 11% is observed in this production [ 3 , 4 ]. However, this cultivation method generates large amounts of waste, such as viscera discarded by producers during the fish removal process at nurseries.…”