Extraction of collagen/gelatin from the marine demosponge Chondrosia reniformis (Nardo, 1847) using water acidified with carbon dioxide: process optimization

Marine sponges are a rich source of natural bioactive compounds. One of the most abundant valuable products is collagen/gelatin, and therefore, presents an interesting alternative source for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. We have previously proposed an innovative green technology for the extraction of collagen/gelatin from marine sponges based in water acidified with carbon dioxide. In this work, we have optimized the process operating conditions towards high yields and collagen quality as well as to reduce extraction procedure duration and energy consumption. The process extraction efficiency is higher than 50%, corresponding to a yield of approximately 10% of the sponge dry mass, obtained for mild operating conditions 10 bars and 3h. The extracted material was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Rheology, Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Circular Dichroism (CD), Aminoacid Analysis and SDS-PAGE. The extracts were found to be composed of highly pure mixtures of collagen and gelatin with similar properties of collagen isolated from other marine sources. The cytotoxicity evaluation, performed with L929 cells, has proven the biocompatibility of the material extracted. Overall, the results obtained demonstrate the efficiency of this approach and the high industrial potential of this technology to obtain marine collagen/gelatin with properties suitable for biomedical applications.FCT through Grant EXP/QEQ-EPS/0745/2012, SWIMS (Subcritical Water Isolation of compounds from Marine Sponges)European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement numbers REGPOT-CT2012-316331-POLARIS and KBBE-2010-266033 (project SPECIAL)European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the project “Novel smart and biomimetic materials for innovative regenerative medicine approaches” RL1-ABMR-NORTE-01- 0124-FEDER-000016), cofinanced by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2, O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF)European Research Council grant agreement ERC-2012- ADG 20120216-321266 for project ComplexiT