Abstract

Collagen is a major structural protein of connective tissues. It can be used as a prosthetic biomaterial applicable to artificial skin, tendon ligaments and development collagen implants. In the present study, an attempt was made to isolate and characterize collagen from the marine sponge, Spirastrella inconstans. The total protein content of sponge collagen was relatively high (32%). While determining the molecular weight of crude and purified collagen through sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), the crude showed three bands (80, 60 and 59 kDa molecular weight) and purified showed only a single band (58 kDa). The structural properties were analyzed by using fourier transform infra red (FT-IR) spectrum and the stability of collagen was also given the single transition peak in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The microstructure of sponge collagen showed highly porous and interconnected scaffolds in scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis.

Key words: Collagen, Spirastrella inconstans, SDS-PAGE, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM)