Collagen extraction from aquatic animals

Abstract

The present invention relates to the use of fish skin as novel industrial source of collagen. Advantageously, said skin is obtained after the filleting or cutting of the fresh fish and frozen immediately after filleting / cutting, thus guaranteeing a very good quality of the base material, both from the bacteriological standpoint and from the standpoint of the native property of the protein.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of PCT Application No. PCT / MY2009 / 000122, filed on Aug. 19, 2009, which claims priority to Malaysian Patent Application No. PI 20085247, filed on Dec. 23, 2008, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a collagen obtained from fishes and a method of producing such fish collagen. In particular, the present invention is directed to a collagen obtainable from the skin of fishes and a method of extracting and producing the same.BACKGROUND OF INVENTION[0003]A great amount of waste portions of fish, which are generally considered useless or untapped, had been discarded. This has been one of the major problems that we should address in the modern society to find various ways to use that seemingly unserviceable portion of fishes in many applicable fields. In view of collagen being obtained from mammals and widely available as an edible material, researches a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]The present invention relates to a process of extracting collagen (type 1 collagen), the collagen is obtained from skins of aquatic animals (preferably Lates calcarifer and Oreochromis nilotica). The collagen is extracted from fish skin using an enzyme, whereby the enzyme is papain. Furthermore, the process comprises a starting material consisting essentially of fish skin, extracting collagen from said the fish skin, and recovering the collagen. The skin is obtained by removing the skin from fresh or frozen fish. Moreover, the process further includes: extracting collagen from skins of Lates calcarifer (barramundi) which includes mixing the skin with alkaline solution (such as sodium) for at least 6 hours; washing the

Problems solved by technology

A great amount of waste portions of fish, which are generally considered useless or untapped, had been discarded.

The fish skin collagen, however, differs in characteristics from mammalian collagen and requires relatively less harse treatment due to the more delicate matrix of the skin.

The applicants have identified that many of the processing steps applied to mammalian collagen extraction are not directly applicable for fish skin collagen extraction since the treatment may be quite harsh or too strong for the fish skin matrix.

Collagen is recognized as a difficult and expensive protein to quantify because of the insoluble nature of most collagens.

The applicants have also determined that the conformation of the native collagen molecule determines molecular functionality, with transition to the random coiled confirmation of gelatin upon denaturing resulting in a significant loss in fining ability.

Moreover, after degutting and filleting of fish, skins are kept with the rest of the discard and they are subjected to rapid enzymatic and microbial damage, which are natural and this may lead to quality variation of the extracted collagen and the gelatins.

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