Degradation Control of Collagen by Epigallocatechin-3-O-Gallate

摘要

Stabilization of the fibrous protein collagen is important in biomedical applications. This study investigated the efficacy of degradation control of collagen using (-)-epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG). EGCG treatment of collagen in solid state was carried out and collagen sponges produced were characterized by measuring the physicochemical properties such as gel fraction, the enzymatic degradability and cytocompatibility. According to gel fraction, EGCG-treated sponges showed the increase of insolubility compared to intact sponges. It showed that EGCG played a role in a crosslinker of collagen. Through in vitro enzymatic degradation test, EGCG-treated collagen sponges showed significant enhancement of resistance to collagenase in comparison with 25 mM EDC-treated collagen sponges. Also, cell proliferation assays showed that 40 mM EGCG-treated collagen sponges exhibited similar cytocompatibility properties compared with tissue culture plate. In summary, EGCG treatment of collagen sponges increased the stability of collagen. Therefore, crosslinking of collagen based scaffold with EGCG imparted more desirable properties, making it more applicable for use as a scaffold in tissue engineering applications.