Studies on the physico-chemical characteristics of collagen–pectin composites

Abstract

Collagen is a well-known soft tissue utilized as a scaffold material for wound healing, however it is mechanically feeble and prone to rapid degradation in its native state. In order to overcome this, the collagen forms complexes with natural or synthetic stabilizing agents for different applications. For diabetic wound dressings, research focuses on cross-linking compounds with anti-glycation activity as they act as a potential therapeutic agent for wound healing. The current study aims to assess whether pectin can be one of the constituents during collagen scaffold preparation. Experimental and theoretical work suggest that pectin can act as a compatible component for collagen in formulating a scaffold, with an increase in thermal stability of about 14 °C compared to native collagen (62 °C). Pectin induces collagen aggregation due to its charged nature and tends to aggregate quickly in an ordered way. This helps to combat excess glycosylation of collagen. There is a minor loss of crystallinity and variations in the functional groups of collagen due to pectin. Morphological evaluation through SEM and AFM are used to characterize the influence of pectin in structural variations of collagen fibrils. Morphological evaluation confirms that there are significant changes in the fibrillogenesis, however the gelling nature of pectin influences uniform film formation. Moreover, pectin acts as an efficient inhibitor for resisting the action of collagenase on collagen and in turn, increases its structural stability. Computational studies also confirm the fact that pectin can act as a suitable ligand for collagen. Moreover, the study confirms that pectin predominantly interacts with basic amino acids which act as competitive agents to sugars during the glycosylation process. The current investigation helps to establish new avenues in collagen tissue engineering applications for diabetic treatment.