Effect of Mammalian Tissue Source on the Molecular and Macroscopic Characteristics of UV-Cured Type I Collagen Hydrogel Networks

The tissue source of type I collagen is critical to ensure scalability and regulation-friendly clinical translation new medical device prototypes. However, the selection a commercial that fulfils both aforementioned requirements compliant with manufacturing routes challenging. This study investigates effect extracted from three different mammalian tissues has on molecular macroscopic characteristics UV-cured hydrogel. Pepsin-solubilised bovine atelocollagen (BA) pepsin-solubilised porcine (PA) were selected as commercially available raw materials associated varying safety risks compared in-house acid-extracted rat tails (CRT). All displayed typical dichroic electrophoretic collagen, while significantly decreased lysine content was measured samples PA. Following covalent functionalisation 4-vinylbenzyl chloride (4VBC), BA CRT products generated comparable hydrogels increased averaged gel (G > 97 wt.%), variants revealed highest swelling ratio (SR = 2224 +/- 242 wt.%) an order magnitude reduction in compression modulus (Ec 6 2 kPa). Collectively, these results support use chemically viable for realisation competitive mechanical properties network architectures.