Development of Eggshell Membrane/Hydroxyapatite-Based Functional Engineering Platforms for Healthcare Applications = Development of Eggshell Membrane/Hydroxyapatite-Based Functional Engineering Platforms for Healthcare Applications

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Eggshell membrane (ESM) is an agricultural by-product and bioresource, and it exists between egg white and eggshell. Recently, ESM is being recognized as a new biomaterial in biomedical fields (e.g., therapeutic agents for skin wound healing). ESM has entangled micro-fibrous structure with micro-pores, and it is mainly composed of abundant proteins, such as collagen I, V, X, and osteopontin. Also, the surfaces of ESM have many functional chemical groups including amine, carboxyl, and amide groups. However, the raw ESM has many limitations of the restricted scale-up platforms, low mechanical property and poor bioactivity. To overcome the limitations of the raw ESM, we proposed new ESM-based functional platforms using nanomaterial for the various applications in the fields of healthcare (e.g., bone tissue engineering). Firstly, we fabricated the ESM solution by dissolving the disulfide bond of the raw ESM for the fabrication of ESM-based platforms with various size. Secondly, we used hydroxyapatite powders (HAp) with nanoscale that can be incorporated into the ESM solution to enhance the mechanical and bioactive property of the raw ESM. Finally, we confirmed that the proliferation and differentiation of the osteoblast-like cells were increased on the HAp/ESM composite with appropriate composite conditions compared to those on the ESM solution. The proposed HAp/ESM composite could be used as new biomaterials for healthcare applications including bone tissue engineering.