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Collagen extracted from the discarded
skin of tilapia - a delicious freshwater fish - has been shown to accelerate
healing when applied directly to wounds.
Researchers have known about the healing
properties of collagen, which is the main structural protein found in the
connective tissues of animals, for many years. Mammal collagen, especially from
pigs and cows, has been extensively used for skin wound healing in hospitals
all over the world. But the problem with mammal collagen is that it carries the
risk of disease transmission, such as foot-and-mouth disease and bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, plus many people can’t receive it due to their
religious beliefs.
But fish collagen? It’s cheaper, safer,
and there’s a whole lot of it to go around.
Back in 2008, research showed that nanofibres made from
collagen-rich, discarded fish scales had enough tensile strength to be used as
a wound-dressing material, and when applied topically, encouraged the growth of
skin cells. Containing around 70 percent collagen, fish skin is even better
than fish scales, and is closer in form and structure to human skin, so a team
of scientists from the Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine in the
US decided to test out its healing powers.
Using a series of processing and purification technologies, the
team managed to extract pieces of high-quality collagen sponge from discarded
tilapia skin. They first tested to see if it would provoke an immune response,
which would be bad, because it means the body is rejecting it.
To find out, they mixed mouse spleen lymphocytes - a type of white
blood cell - and mixed
them with the tilapia collagen sponge. The contact did not cause the
lymphocytes to proliferate, which means there was no immune response.
"Furthermore, tilapia collagen encouraged the growth of fibroblasts and
increased the expression of genes involved in wound healing,” Alex B.
Berezow reports at Real Clear Science. "Thus, these experiments
indicated that tilapia collagen is well-suited for regenerative medicine."
Next, the researchers tested the strength of a wound dressing
made from tilapia collagen and found that it was tough, and stable at
temperatures up to around 300 degrees Celsius.
The final test was its actual wound-healing ability. Rats with
1.8-centimetre long wounds on their backs were treated with either the new fish
collagen wound dressings, an algae-based wound dressing called Kaltostat, or
nothing at all
"Compared to the control groups,
the wound-healing rate was significantly improved, crust started to disappear
at day seven, and most of the wound area was covered with a continuous
epidermis at day 14 in the collagen nanofibres group, while the skin wounds in
the other two groups were not fully healed,” the team reports in Applied
Materials & Interfaces. "The histopathological results
confirmed that the collagen nanofibres caused the lowest degree of inflammatory
response and induced the best growth status of new epidermis throughout the
process of wound healing."
The next step will be human trials, and turning it into a
commercially viable product. But it won’t be easy. “They will face a tough
marketplace,” says
Berezow at Real Clear Science. "For instance, the company
Eqalix, which uses a soybean protein to promote wound healing, has a head start
of a few years. Currently, Eqalix is seeking FDA clearance for its product.”
I hope they get there. What they’re using is an abundant and
cheap waste product, which is just sitting there waiting to be recycled. It's
not clear if Eqalix is using discarded soybean parts, but if they're not, well,
we really don't need another excuse to grow
more of them.




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