Development of cross-linkable collagen derivative with cellulose for 3D cell-culture application

Abstract

Food waste has becoming one of the biggest waste streams due to the increasing population. However, it has slowly become an issue globally due to the improper treatment of these food waste. In fact, food waste is a highly valuable by-product as it contains useful proteins and minerals that can be extracted for various applications. As such, studies have been conducted by focusing on the upcycling and to focus on the waste-to-resource application of these food waste.

In this research, two waste materials were targeted, namely discarded bullfrog skins and coffee ground, in which collagen was extracted from bullfrog skins and cellulose was isolated from coffee ground. Collagen, the most abundant protein in human has been widely used as scaffolding material for tissue regeneration. However, the poor mechanical properties and rapid degradation have limited its potential application. On the other hand, cellulose is a class of carbohydrate/polysaccharide with good mechanical strength but commonly associated with poor water solubility and scaffold forming-ability. Hence, the combination of these two waste materials could are covercome the limitation on its own. By varying the amount of cellulose to collagen, the mechanical properties and surface hydrophilicity can be fine-tuned without critically compromising the porosity and pore structure of the composite scaffolds. Overall, the optimized formulation obtained from this study could be used to evaluate the suitability of 3D cell culture.