Evaluation of the biocompatibility of fish skin collagen with the mesenchymal stem cells in in vitro cultures

There are scarce published data suggesting, that collagen extracted from fish skin may be an attractive alternative to mammalian-derived collagen for the in vitro cell cultures. In this study, we investigated proliferation potential and differentiation capability into osteogenic and adipogenic lineages of rat adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (rASCs) and human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hASCs) cultured on collagen extracted from silver carp and African sharptooth catfish skins, compared with commercially available mammalian collagen and collagen-free culture dishes. Our results revealed no significant differences between fish collagen and mammalian collagen in supporting cell viability and proliferation capacity. Fish-derived collagen is a cheap material derived from production waste, does not contain transmissible pathogens of mammalian origin, supports human cell cultures at comparable level to conventional collagen sources, and may be considered as the product of choice for the in vitro cell cultures.