Potential of Atlantic codfish (Gadus morhua) skin collagen and derivatives on skincare

Introduction: Marine organisms have been arousing interest to the biomedical and cosmeceutical industry, as an alternative source of collagen, due to the outbreak of diseases associated with mammalian collagen, and the risk they pose to human health along with some religious constrains1,2. Furthermore, marine collagens present good biocompatibility, biodegradability and weak antigenicity characteristics and can be obtained from different organisms3. Considering fish in particular, collagen has been extracted from several body parts, inclusively its skin, with economic and environmental advantages4. Since the Atlantic codfish is processed in Portugal for food, rendering an important amount of by-products1, its skin was selected as raw-material to be valorized. In this regard, this study aims to valorize the Atlantic codfish skin, by developing a codfish collagen-based membrane, from its type I collagen, for wound dressing. In parallel to the development of a potential biomedical application, the eventual differences between fish and mammal collagens regarding intrinsic properties and envisaged performance was also evaluated, as tool for benchmarking, contributing to the knowledge on the codfish collagen and derivatives potential on skincare. Conclusions: The ASColl was successfully extracted from the codfish skin, from two different batches (2018 and 2019). In terms of collagen characterization, through the results obtained, it can be concluded that no significant differences between the different ASColl extracts and the commercial type I collagen from bovine skin, were found. The collagen membranes were successfully made with the extracted ASColl, demonstrating stability and a smooth surface, at room temperature presenting, also, hydrophilic properties. However, the crosslinking method for these type of scaffolds needs to be optimized, to obtain more stable membranes in aqueous solutions, namely PBS and cell medium.