Review
Animal-derived natural products review: Focus on novel modifications and applications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2015.02.033Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We introduce the advances in modifications of animal-derived natural products.

  • Some novel modification methods and structures of animal-derived natural products are summarized.

  • Modified casein and collagen can be used as the leather finishing agents.

  • Chitosan-based absorbents hold much promise on pollutant removal.

  • Casein or chitosan based carriers exhibit good drug releasing properties.

Abstract

Bio-based natural products have attracted exploding interests, while the environmental pollutions caused by the synthetic polymers are deteriorating dramatically. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the modification of animal-derived natural products with an emphasis on casein, chitosan and collagen. Furthermore, their novel applications in controlled drug delivery system, leather finishing, and pollutant adsorption are also demonstrated. Accordingly, some perspectives in the future development of animal-derived natural products are further proposed.

Introduction

Recently, considerable attention has been focused on bio-based natural products because of their environmental friendliness [1], [2], [3]. Among them, animal-derived natural products have become highly attractive due to their good biocompatibility, high adsorption capacity, and excellent film-forming property. All of these make them visible in pharmaceutical, leather, cosmetic, and wastewater treating fields [4], [5], [6], [7].

Animal-derived natural products occur to varying extents in nearly all forms of animals. They are the secondary metabolites extracted from living bodies and possess a great many unmatchable properties [8]. However, they always suffer from a few defects, such as poor machinability, low mechanical properties and weak environment resistance, thus limiting their application. In this case, modifications must be made to endow the final products with a wider range of applications [9], [10], [11], [12], [13].

Casein, chitosan, and collagen are three conventional animal-derived natural products with unique structures (Fig. 1) and have broad applications [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. Substantial active groups on their primary structures promise them unparalleled opportunity for functional modifications. For example, single bondNH2 groups on casein chains are able to react with functional monomers via graft polymerization. Realizing this superiority, a growing exploration of their modifications has been exerted. In our group, a series of researches has been conducted on casein and collagen. For example, casein-based coatings have been successfully designed for leather finishing and ink binders, which laid a good foundation for the further study. Accordingly, this review mainly gives an account of the modification and application of these three bio-based products. The list of examples provided in this review was selected from the recent literatures, especially in terms of their applications in controlled drug delivery, leather finishing, and pollutant adsorption. Finally, some prospects for the future research of animal-derived natural products are proposed.

Section snippets

Casein

Casein is one of the most abundant proteins in bovine milk [20], [21]. Its structure mainly contains four phosphoproteins, αS1-, αS2-, β-, and κ-casein [22], [23], [24]. As a bio-based protein, casein possesses various singular properties. However, there are a mass of polar groups (such as single bondOH, single bondNH2, and single bondCOOH groups) on its molecular chain, which often result in unexpected weak water resistance and stability [25]. Therefore, modifications are required to improve its properties.

Applications

Since animal-derived natural products have attractive properties, they have sparked interests in at least three major industrial sectors:

  • Drug delivery (drug loading, controlled release, target release, etc.).

  • Leather industry (tanning, re-tanning and finishing process).

  • Pollution treatment (air purification and pollutants adsorption in wastewater).

Considering the rapidly expanding body of literature in these fields, in the following, we mainly focus on their novel applications in controlled drug

Conclusions and outlooks

Up to now, great efforts have been made to modify bio-based casein, chitosan and collagen for more advanced materials. These animal-derived natural products hold much promise in extensive areas, e.g. controlled drug delivery, leather finishing and pollutant treatment. However, the performances of these animal-derived materials still need to be further improved especially in the following aspects.

In the controlled drug delivery system, animal-derived materials may be the most promising

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Science Foundation of China (21176149), Shaanxi Team Innovation Project (2013KCT-08), Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation Research Project (2014JQ2052) and Shaanxi Provincial Education Fund Project (14JK1087).

References (87)

  • A. Kumari

    Biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles based drug delivery systems

    Colloids Surf. B: Biointerfaces

    (2010)
  • Y. Liu

    Preparation and characterization of a novel tobramycin-containing antibacterial collagen film for corneal tissue engineering

    Acta Biomater.

    (2014)
  • L.I.F. Moura

    Neurotensin-loaded collagen dressings reduce inflammation and improve wound healing in diabetic mice

    Biochim. Biophys. Acta

    (2014)
  • M. Sáiz-Abajo

    Thermal protection of β-carotene in re-assembled casein micelles during different processing technologies applied in food industry

    Food Chem.

    (2013)
  • A. Ancona

    Synthesis and characterization of hybrid copper–chitosan nano-antimicrobials by femtosecond laser-ablation in liquids

    Mater. Lett.

    (2014)
  • S. Gangnard

    Modifications of the charges at the N-terminus of bovine β-casein: consequences on its structure and its micellisation

    Food Hydrocoll.

    (2007)
  • J. Gaudin

    Engineering of caseins and modulation of their structures and interactions

    Biotechnol. Adv.

    (2009)
  • Y.D. Livney

    A study of beta-casein tertiary structure by intramolecular crosslinking and mass spectromety

    Dairy Sci.

    (2004)
  • E. Dickinson

    Aggregation in a concentrated model protein system: a mesoscopic simulation of β-casein self-assembly

    Food Hydrocoll.

    (2001)
  • D.S. Horne

    Casein structure, self-assembly and gelation

    Curr. Opin. Colloid Interface Sci.

    (2002)
  • J.Z. Ma

    Blend composites of caprolactam-modified casein and waterborne polyurethane for film-forming binder: miscibility, morphology and properties

    Polym. Degrad. Stab.

    (2012)
  • S. Sinha

    Microwave initiated synthesis of polyacrylamide grafted casein (CAS-g-PAM) – its application as a flocculant

    Int. J. Biol. Macromol.

    (2013)
  • X.Y. Pan

    Simultaneous nanoparticle formation and encapsulation driven by hydrophobic interaction of casein-graft-dextran and β-carotene

    J. Colloid Interface Sci.

    (2007)
  • M.F. Mu

    Acidic solution properties of β-casein-graft-dextran copolymer prepared through Maillard reaction

    J. Colloid Interface Sci.

    (2006)
  • J.Z. Ma

    Nano-scale core–shell structural casein based coating latex: synthesis, characterization and its biodegradability

    Prog. Org. Coat.

    (2013)
  • Q.N. Xu

    Bio-based core–shell casein-based silica nano-composite latex by double-in situ polymerization: synthesis, characterization and mechanism

    Chem. Eng. J.

    (2013)
  • J.H. Park

    Targeted delivery of low molecular drugs using chitosan and its derivatives

    Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev.

    (2010)
  • S. Nuasaen

    Hollow latex particles functionalized with chitosan for the removal of formaldehyde from indoor air

    Carbohydr. Polym.

    (2014)
  • Z.K. Zhou

    Adsorption of food dyes from aqueous solution by glutaraldehyde cross-linked magnetic chitosan nanoparticles

    J. Food Eng.

    (2014)
  • C.S. Oliveira et al.

    Pyridine derivative covalently bonded on chitosan pendant chains for textile dye removal

    Carbohydr. Polym.

    (2014)
  • M. Ghaemy et al.

    Synthesis of chitosan networks: swelling, drug release, and magnetically assisted BSA separation using Fe3O4 nanoparticles

    Carbohydr. Polym.

    (2012)
  • M.L. Li

    Simple preparation of aminothiourea-modified chitosan as corrosion inhibitor and heavy metal ion adsorbent

    J. Colloid Interface Sci.

    (2014)
  • W. Pasanphan

    Radiation-induced graft copolymerization of poly(ethylene glycol) monomethacrylate onto deoxycholate-chitosan nanoparticles as a drug carrier

    Radiat. Phys. Chem.

    (2014)
  • D.B. Hua

    A novel method of controlled grafting modification of chitosan via RAFT polymerization using chitosan-RAFT agent

    Carbohydr. Polym.

    (2008)
  • F. Pati

    Isolation and characterization of fish scale collagen of higher thermal stability

    Bioresour. Technol.

    (2010)
  • J.M. Ruijgrok

    Glutaraldehyde crosslinking of collagen: effects of time, temperature, concentration and presoaking as measured by shrinkage temperature

    Clin. Mater.

    (1994)
  • M. Kikuchi

    Glutaraldehyde cross-linked hydroxyapatite/collagen self-organized nanocomposites

    Biomaterials

    (2004)
  • S. Sinthusamran

    Comparative study on molecular characteristics of acid soluble collagens from skin and swim bladder of seabass (Lates calcarifer)

    Food Chem.

    (2013)
  • Y. Di et al.

    Collagen stabilization and modification using a polyepoxide, triglycidyl isocyanurate

    Polym. Degrad. Stab.

    (2009)
  • H. Wu

    Collagen fiber with surface-grafted polyphenol as a novel support for Pd(0) nanoparticles: synthesis, characterization and catalytic application

    Mater. Sci. Eng. C

    (2010)
  • A.O. Elzoghby

    Casein-based formulations as promising controlled release drug delivery systems

    J. Control. Release

    (2011)
  • F. Song

    Novel casein hydrogels: formation, structure and controlled drug release

    Colloids Surf. B: Biointerfaces

    (2010)
  • J.Z. Ma

    Synthesis and biological response of casein-based silica nano-composite film for drug delivery system

    Colloids Surf. B: Biointerfaces

    (2013)
  • Cited by (26)

    • High biobased content waterborne latexes stabilized with casein

      2022, Progress in Organic Coatings
      Citation Excerpt :

      In this context, the synthesis of hybrid materials based on proteins, such as casein, zein, collagen, among others, has been reported, because natural proteins provide several advantages, like excellent biodegradability, biocompatibility, low toxicity, and sometimes they can be obtained as a byproduct of other industries which favors circular economy [1,5–7]. Furthermore, due to the presence of different amino acids in the proteins structure, many functional groups such as ammonia (–NH3), amine (–NH2), thiol (–SH) and carboxylic acids (–COOH) allow the protein chemical modification, to improve their properties or to obtain a polymerizable building block [1,8–10]. More specifically, casein, a milk protein, has been widely studied for obtaining waterborne coatings, through the synthesis of acrylic/casein nanocomposites.

    • Thermal responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) grafted chicken feather keratin prepared via surface initiated aqueous Cu(0)-mediated RDRP: Synthesis and properties

      2020, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
      Citation Excerpt :

      In the meantime, biomass-based materials have a major drawback of the limited properties (e.g., mechanical and thermal properties). To overcome this obstacle, an alternative approach to exploit biomass-based materials is conjugated them with other polymers via graft modification [24,29–31]. The introduce of graft chain not only enhances the weak properties of natural materials, but also creating additional abilities towards certain applications.

    • Fabrication of antibacterial casein-based ZnO nanocomposite for flexible coatings

      2017, Materials and Design
      Citation Excerpt :

      As a natural polymer, casein is completely biodegradable and has good film-forming properties including excellent adhesive force and strong heat resistance. Various casein-based formulations have been designed for controlled drug delivery, leather finishing and water-based ink [13,14]. Nevertheless casein film has less extensibility [15,16] and tends to be easily spoiled by bacteria attack, which might restrict its practical applications.

    • The facile synthesis of chitosan-based silver nano-biocomposites via a solution plasma process and their potential antimicrobial efficacy

      2016, Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics
      Citation Excerpt :

      Its commercial value is based on the percentage of deacetylation [12,13]. Chitosan is widely used in the entire spectrum of medical applications, including in drug delivery systems, due to its non-toxicity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and antimicrobial properties [14,15]. Therefore, its desirable synergistic antimicrobial effect on human pathogens validates chitosan as a suitable matrix for metallic nano-biocomposites.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text