Extraction of acid-soluble collagen from jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo (Macri, 1778): Comparison of two extraction methods

Abstract

Marine collagen is in higher demand than terrestrial collagen sources due to its low risk of pathogenic infection, no cytotoxicity, and lack of religious or ethical restrictions. Among marine collagen sources, jellyfish is attractive due to its accessibility and rapidly increasing populations in changing climate conditions. This study aims to extract acid-soluble collagen from the jellyfish Rhizostoma pulmo (Macri, 1778), commonly found in the Sea of Marmara, using two different acid-assisted extraction methods. Within the scope of this study, collagen isolated by methods coded as A and B was comparatively characterized using zeta potential, particle size, SDS-PAGE analyses, spectroscopic techniques such as UV-Visible and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), as well as biological tests, such as cytotoxicity and biocompatibility, and was also compared with commercially available acid-soluble collagen presented in the literature. UV-Visible spectroscopy, along with techniques such as particle size analysis, and FTIR spectroscopy confirmed that both extraction methods are identical and fully compatible with commercial jellyfish collagen. Extracted collagens were investigated in vitro cytocompatibility using L929 fibroblasts, and both extraction methods were found to be safe. When comparing the isolation efficiencies of acid-assisted extraction methods, method B (0.71±0.04) demonstrated approximately three times higher efficiency than A (0.26±0.05) and stood out with a performance that could rival the efficiency of pepsin-assisted extraction. These results show that both methods are compatible with commercial jellyfish collagen and effective in the extraction of jellyfish collagen. However, considering the isolation yield and the multi-step processing time, method B is significantly more effective.