Transient structures of keratins from hoof and horn influence their self association and supramolecular assemblies.

Keratins as fibrous proteins, offer structural integrity to various tissues in providing the functional role of protection or load bearing. This work is a prelude to understand the structure - property correlation for a wide variety of keratins. The kinetics of aggregation of bovine hoof keratin (KF) and horn keratin (KR) were monitored by different biophysical methods. pH dependent studies indicated that initially both keratins existed in pre-aggregated form and the efficiency of aggregation decreased with increasing pH. The size of the aggregates was found to be larger in KF compared to KR. UV-vis and particle size analysis clearly revealed that the pre-aggregated forms of KF and KR dissociated to intermediate transient structures with smaller aggregate size, which acted as stronger nucleating agents for further self association of the keratins to form higher order supramolecular assemblies. Conformational analysis indicated that there was no significant conformational change during the aggregation of KF and KR. Morphology of the KF aggregates showed fractal arrangement while KR aggregates formed an ordered structure with no particular arrangement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report which shows an interesting and unique observation on changes in the structure during self-association of keratins.

Fabrication of keratin-silica hydrogel for biomedical applications.

In the recent past, keratin has been fabricated into different forms of biomaterials like scaffold, gel, sponge, film etc. In lieu of the myriad advantages of the hydrogels for biomedical applications, a keratin-silica hydrogel was fabricated using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). Textural analysis shed light on the physical properties of the fabricated hydrogel, inturn enabling the optimization of the hydrogel. The optimized keratin-silica hydrogel was found to exhibit instant springiness, optimum hardness, with ease of spreadability. Moreover, the hydrogel showed excellent swelling with highly porous microarchitecture. MTT assay and DAPI staining revealed that keratin-silica hydrogel was biocompatible with fibroblast cells. Collectively, these properties make the fabricated keratin-silica hydrogel, a suitable dressing material for biomedical applications.

Development of keratin-chitosan-gelatin composite scaffold for soft tissue engineering.

Keratin has gained much attention in the recent past as a biomaterial for wound healing owing to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, intrinsic biological activity and presence of cellular binding motifs. In this paper, a novel biomimetic scaffold containing keratin, chitosan and gelatin was prepared by freeze drying method. The prepared keratin composite scaffold had good structural integrity. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy showed the retention of the native structure of individual biopolymers (keratin, chitosan, and gelatin) used in the scaffold. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results revealed a high thermal denaturation temperature of the scaffold (200-250°C). The keratin composite scaffold exhibited tensile strength (96 kPa), compression strength (8.5 kPa) and water uptake capacity (>1700%) comparable to that of a collagen scaffold, which was used as control. The morphology of the keratin composite scaffold observed using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) exhibited good porosity and interconnectivity of pores. MTT assay using NIH 3T3 fibroblast cells demonstrated that the cell viability of the keratin composite scaffold was good. These observations suggest that the keratin-chitosan-gelatin composite scaffold is a promising alternative biomaterial for tissue engineering applications.

Extraction and characterization of keratin from bovine hoof: A potential material for biomedical applications.

Keratin from the hoof is a less explored source for making valuable products. In this paper we present the extraction of pure keratin from bovine hooves and characterized them to better address the possible exploitation of this bio-resource as an alternative material for tissue engineering applications. The keratin protein from the pulverized hooves was extracted by reduction, which was observed to be pure, and two polypeptide chains of molecular weight in the range of 45-50 and 55-60 KDa were determined using SDS-PAGE assay. FTIR analysis complementing circular dichroism (CD) data, established that hoof keratin predominantly adopted α-helical conformation with admixture of ß-sheet. The keratin was shown to have appreciably high denaturation temperature (215°C) as indicated by differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analysis. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) also showed the retention of 50% of the original weight of the sample even at a temperature of 346°C. The keratin from the hoof had been observed to be biocompatible when analyzed with MTT assay using fibroblast cells, showing more than 90% cell viability. Hence, hoof keratin would be useful for high value biomedical applications.