Sea Cucumber (<em>Isostichopus badionotus</em>): Bioactivity and Wound Healing Capacity In Vitro of Small Peptide Isolates from Digests of Whole-Body Wall or Purified Collagen
- Publicado
- Servidor
- Preprints.org
- DOI
- 10.20944/preprints202509.1539.v1
Low-molecular-weight peptides derived by digestion of body wall proteins from some sea cucumber species have wound-healing and health-promoting properties. Sea cucumber body composition varies widely by species, growth environment, age and season, so it is unknown if all species contain the requisite bioactive peptides. For the first time, small peptide (1-3 kDa) fractions have been isolated from the whole-body wall of the sea cucumber Isostichopus badionotus and its constituent collagen, and tested for wound healing capacity in vitro. The body wall comprised around 50% collagen, whose composition and structure were like, but not identical to, other sea cucumber collagens. Ultrafiltered digests (1-3 kDa) of the pure collagen and a further purified fraction of it, as well as a 1-3 kDa digest of whole-body wall, had potent antioxidant activities and promoted rapid wound healing in a keratinocyte scratch wound assay. Gene expression studies suggested that the wound-healing actions of the individual 1-3 kDa fractions differed significantly. Low-molecular-weight peptides derived from I. badionotus collagen did promote wound healing in vitro, however, their efficacy may have been modulated by additional factors produced during body wall or collagen digestion.