Silver Nanoparticles Impregnated Nanocollagen as Scaffold for Soft Tissue Repair-Synthesis, Characterization, and In vitro Investigation

The regeneration of soft tissue is challenging task in the medicine due to infection at the wound site. Therefore, it requires a rapid regeneration scaffold for dermis and epidermis in the soft tissue. The silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) impregnated nanocollagen has been developed for soft tissue repair. The nano-collagen contained silver nanoparticles facilitates the rapid regeneration of wounded skin, when compared to collagen microfibers. Collagen was extracted from scales of Catla fish and made into nanocollagen using a standard ultrasonic processing method. The average diameter of collagen nanofibres after sonication process was evaluated to be 500 nm. The collagen fibres are aggregated due to hydrogen bonding between amino acids in the side chain. Size of silver nanoparticles to be impregnated into the nanocollegen varied from 180 to 210 nm. The nanocollagen with AgNPs, were characterized using UV-Vis spectroscopy, SDS PAGE, particle size analyzer, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The UV-Visible spectroscopy investigated the genesis of spherical shaped silver nanoparticles through surface plasmon band between 250 to 300 nm. The formation of silver nanoparticles was confirmed by wavelength of 300 nm under UV region. The silver nanoparticles have a good antibacterial action against wound pathogens. Nanocollagen with silver nanoparticles were subjected to MTT cytotoxicity assay under optimized concentration and in vitro wound healing assay was also performed on EA.hy926 cell lines, to evaluate efficacy of this nanomaterial scaffold for wound repair. This study confirmed that silver nanoparticles impregnated nanocollagen could be a potential wound repair biomedical scaffold.