Research On The Extraction Of Human Hair Keratin And Its Biomedical Application

Keratin is the main component of wool,feathers,nail and other epithelial coverings.As a natural biomacromolecule,keratin has good bioactivity,biocompatibility,biodegradation,and natural abundance.Keratin-based biomaterials have emerged as potential candidates for many biomedical applications.In this research work,human hair keratin(HHK)was extracted and coelectrospun with polymers for biomedical applications including wound dressing and scaffold for vascular tissue engineering.(1)Extraction and modification of keratin.Hu:man hair keratin was extracted by reduction method and then modified with iodoacetic acid(IAA).HHK was characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy,Raman spectroscopy,circular dichroism(CD),zeta-potential,thermo-gravimetric(TG),and amino acid analysis.(2)Electrospinning of polyurethane/keratin/Ag NPs mats for wound dressing.HHK was coelectrospun with polyurethane(PU)to produce PU/keratin mats,following by silver ions adsorpsion and chemical reduction to generate PU/keratin/Ag NPs mats.These mats were characterized by static water contact angel(WCA),scanning electron microscope(SEM),ATR-FTIR spectroscopy,and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS).The results of MTT and antibacterial test indicated that PU/keratin/silver nanoparticles mats had excellent cytocompatibility and antibacterial properties.(3)Electrospinning of poly(ε-caprolactone)/keratin mats for vascular tissue engineering.HHK was coelectrospun with poly(ε-caprolactone)(PCL)to produce PCL/keratin mats.The mtas were characterized by WCA,SEM,ATR-FTIR,and XPS.These mats were proved to have good cytocompatibility.Furthermore,PCL/keratin mats had the potential to catalyze endogenous nitro oxide donor RSNO to release nitro oxide(NO).