title: Differences in cytocompatibility between collagen, gelatin and keratin.
abstract: Keratins are cysteine-rich intermediate filament proteins found in the cytoskeleton of the epithelial cells and in the matrix of hair, feathers, wool, nails and horns. The natural abundance of cell adhesion sequences, RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) and LDV (Leu-Asp-Val), makes them suitable for tissue engineering applications. The purpose of our study is to evaluate their cytocompatibility as compared to well-known collagen and gelatin proteins. Herein, collagen, gelatin and keratin were blended with poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and electrospun to afford nanofibrous mats, respectively. These PHBV/protein composite mats were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The cytocompatibility was evaluated with cell adhesion, cell viability and cell proliferation. The data from MTT and BrDU revealed that collagen had significantly superior cytocompatibility as compared to gelatin and keratin. Gelatin showed a better cytocompatibility than keratin without statistical significance difference. Finally, we gave the reasons to account for the above conclusions.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yanfang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China. Electronic address: jyuan@njnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biofunctional Materials, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, P. R. China. Electronic address: jshen@njnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005780:Gelatin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D007633:Keratins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008422:Materials Testing; D051379:Mice; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells
chemical_list: D007633:Keratins; D005780:Gelatin; D003094:Collagen
keywords: Cytocompatibility; Electrospinning; Keratin; PHBV; Protein