Sol–Gel
Assisted Fabrication of Collagen Hydrolysate Composite Scaffold: A
Novel Therapeutic Alternative to the Traditional Collagen Scaffold
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Abstract
Collagen
is one of the most widely used biomaterial for various biomedical
applications. In this Research Article, we present a novel approach
of using collagen hydrolysate, smaller fragments of collagen, as an
alternative to traditionally used collagen scaffold. Collagen hydrolysate
composite scaffold (CHCS) was fabricated with sol–gel transition
procedure using tetraethoxysilane as the silica precursor. CHCS exhibits
porous morphology with pore sizes varying between 380 and 780 μm.
Incorporation of silica conferred CHCS with controlled biodegradation
and better water uptake capacity. Notably, 3T3 fibroblast proliferation
was seen to be significantly better under CHCS treatment when compared
to treatment with collagen scaffold. Additionally, CHCS showed excellent
antimicrobial activity against the wound pathogens <i>Staphylococcus
aureus, Bacillus subtilis</i>, and <i>Escherichia coli</i> due to the inherited antimicrobial activity of collagen hydrolysate.
In vivo wound healing experiments with full thickness excision wounds
in rat model demonstrated that wounds treated with CHCS showed accelerated
healing when compared to wounds treated with collagen scaffold. These
findings indicate that the CHCS scaffold from collagen fragments would
be an effective and affordable alternative to the traditionally used
collagen structural biomaterials