Fish biowaste gelatin coated phosphate-glass fibres for wound-healing application

Inadequate wound management techniques can result in severe consequences for patients and are a major Health Economic burden worldwide. Currently, biosynthetic scaffolds for wound healing are of interest to address the shortcomings of existing treatment options. Gelatin is a derivative of collagen with similar properties, however, with non-antigenic properties. Fish biowaste gelatin has been recognized as a safer, economical and more widely accepted alternative to gelatin derived from mammalian sources. This study investigated the use of bioresorbable phosphate-based glass fibres (PGFs) coated with fish scale gelatin (FSG - extracted from tilapia fish scales) for potential wound healing application. Assessments of the FSG revealed a high protein content of 89.4%. The bloom gel strength, viscosity, SDS-PAGE molecular pattern and functional groups of FSG were found to be similar to bovine gelatin. FSG was then crosslinked using relatively low concentrations of glutaraldehyde (GTA) to coat PGF surfaces. These GTA-crosslinked coated scaffolds were then evaluated in vitro for their cytocompatibility via HaCaT cell adhesion, migration and proliferation studies. All cells grown on the un-crosslinked coated (UCS) and GTA-crosslinked coated scaffolds (GCS5, GCS10 and GCS15) revealed cells with flat and spreading morphologies along the fibres. However, only GCS15 samples showed a significantly greater number of adhered cells than the uncoated PGFs. GCS10 and GCS15 both revealed accelerated in vitro artificial wound closure via additional 27.4% and 28.5% (mu m/mu m), respectively in wound scratch test, as compared to the untreated wound within 24 h. Tetrazolium (MTT) assay revealed the highest cell viability in GCS15 among all the scaffolds on day 7. Overall, GCS15 promoted adhesion and proliferation of HaCaT cells and ultimately, accelerated their migration in vitro demonstrating high potential of this material as a wound healing scaffold.