Naturally Prefabricated Marine Biomaterials: Isolation and Applications of Flat Chitinous 3D Scaffolds from Ianthella labyrinthus (Demospongiae: Verongiida)

Abstract

Marine sponges remain representative of a unique source of renewable biological materials. The demosponges of the family Ianthellidae possess chitin-based skeletons with high biomimetic potential. These three-dimensional (3D) constructs can potentially be used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this study, we focus our attention, for the first time, on the marine sponge Ianthella labyrinthus Bergquist & Kelly-Borges, 1995 (Demospongiae: Verongida: Ianthellidae) as a novel potential source of naturally prestructured bandage-like 3D scaffolds which can be isolated simultaneously with biologically active bromotyrosines. Specifically, translucent and elastic flat chitinous scaffolds have been obtained after bromotyrosine extraction and chemical treatments of the sponge skeleton with alternate alkaline and acidic solutions. For the first time, cardiomyocytes differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-CMs) have been used to test the suitability of I. labyrinthus chitinous skeleton as ready-to-use scaffold for their cell culture. Results reveal a comparable attachment and growth on isolated chitin-skeleton, compared to scaffolds coated with extracellular matrix mimetic Geltrex®. Thus, the natural, unmodified I. labyrinthus cleaned sponge skeleton can be used to culture iPSC-CMs and 3D tissue engineering. In addition, I. labyrinthus chitin-based scaffolds demonstrate strong and efficient capability to absorb blood deep into the microtubes due to their excellent capillary effect. These findings are suggestive of the future development of new sponge chitin-based absorbable hemostats as alternatives to already well recognized cellulose-based fabrics.

3D Chitin Scaffolds of Marine Demosponge Origin for Biomimetic Mollusk Hemolymph-Associated Biomineralization Ex-Vivo

“…However, such chitin scaffolds were prepared by dissolving crustaceans chitin flakes in LiCl/dimethylacetamide, following by gel formation and freeze-drying [157]. In contrast, the experimental results reported in this study unambiguously show a new biomimetic direction to apply already naturally prefabricated [18] 3D chitinous scaffolds of poriferan origin as templates for both the growth of mollusk and hemocytes and the functionalization of the surface of chitin fibers with respect to the formation of amorphous and crystalline (calcite) calcium carbonate-based layers. Our approach is based on ready-to-use 3D scaffolds of sponges' origin hence only the size of already naturally predesigned pores could be a limiting factor.…”

“…This trend is well represented in the book by Choi and Ben-Nissan entitled Marine-Derived Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering Applications [13]. We completely agree with the statement of Professor Pierfrancesco Morganti that "the use of natural polymers in substitution to the petrol-derived ones seems the best way to produce skin-friendly healthy tissues and, slowing down the increased plastics production and waste, to try to save the Earth's environment equilibrium and biodiversity" [2].Special attention is currently paid to naturally pre-designed scaffolds found in skeletons of diverse marine sponges, which represent unique renewable resources for the sustainable development of novel 3D biomaterials [14][15][16][17][18][19]. The main players in this field are marine demosponges (phylum Porifera: class Demospongiae) of the orders Dictyoceratida (subclass Keratosa) and Verongiida (subclass Verongimorpha), which produce microporous proteinaceous (spongin)-based [16,[20][21][22][23] and chitin-based [23-34] 3D skeletal constructs, respectively.…”

Electrochemical Approach for Isolation of Chitin from the Skeleton of the Black Coral Cirrhipathes sp. (Antipatharia)

“…Thus, we obtained a membranous organic matrix, with regular pores up to 100 µm large. Calcofluor white staining of this matter ( Figure 7B) allows us to assume, with a high probability, the chitinous nature of the matrix, taking into account previously published results on chitin identification using this broadly applied technique [3][4][5]9,10,13,16,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. For indisputable identification of chitin, we used infrared spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR), the chitinase digestion test, and ESI-MS-based analytics as represented below.…”

3D Chitin Scaffolds from the Marine Demosponge Aplysina archeri as a Support for Laccase Immobilization and Its Use in the Removal of Pharmaceuticals

“…Thus, demosponges of the order Dictioceratida (also known as commercial bath sponges) [7,8] represent a renewable source of proteinaceous spongin scaffolds which have recently been reported as effective in applications in extreme biomimetics [9][10][11][12], waste treatment [13][14][15][16][17], electrochemistry [18], and enzyme immobilization [19]. Meanwhile, marine demosponges of the order Verongiida have been recognized as a renewable source of uniquely pre-structured 3D chitinous scaffolds [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] which have found applications in tissue engineering [6,21,[29][30][31][32][33][34], drug release [35], the development of hybrid materials [36][37][38][39][40], and environmental science [41,42]. Chitin of invertebrate origin has previously been studied by researchers in protein immobilization as a matrix for the immobilization of enzymes [43][44][45][46][47][48], including ...…”