A research group led by Professor Kenji Izumi of the Graduate School of Dentistry at Niigata University and Professor Jun Mizuno of the Nanolife Innovation Research Organization of Waseda University has collaborated with chemical manufacturer Taki Chemical to use human collagen as a transplant material for fish collagen. We have developed a new material with a wavy structure peculiar to the oral mucosa.
According to Niigata University, the mucous membranes and skin of the human mouth have a double structure of epidermis and connective tissue, which is similar to a combination of sheets and mattresses.The boundary surface has a wavy structure like a kitchen sponge, which plays a role of making it difficult for the epidermis and connective tissue to come off, but the biological transplant materials that have been commercially available so far do not have a wavy structure.
The research group uses fish collagen instead of bovine and pig collagen, which has been used as a biological transplant material, to make collagen into a film, and then use a micro electromechanical system used to manufacture semiconductor substrates on the surface. A wavy structure was added.
Fish collagen has no risk of contracting infectious diseases such as mad cow disease and is convenient to sew in the mouth.In the future, the research group plans to use artificial gingiva made of fish collagen for wounds made in the mouth of pigs to verify the healing of wounds.We would like to commercialize a biological transplant material that can be used not only for the mouth but also for skin wounds.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Manufacturing micropatterned collagen scaffolds with chemical-crosslinking for development of biomimetic tissue-engineered oral mucosa
