Mesoscaled assemblies are organized in native collagen tissues to achieve remarkable and diverse performance and functions. In this work, a facile, low-cost, and controllable liquid exfoliation method was applied to directly extract these collagen mesostructures from bovine Achilles tendons using a sodium hydroxide (NaOH)/urea aqueous system with freeze–thaw cycles and sonication. A series of collagen fibrils with diameters of 26–230 nm were harvested using this process, and in situ observations under polarizing microscopy (POM) and using molecular dynamics simulations revealed the influence of the NaOH/urea system on the tendon collagen. FTIR and XRD results confirmed that these collagen fibrils preserved typical structural characteristics of type I collagen. These isolated collagen fibrils were then utilized as building blocks to fabricate free-standing collagen membranes, which exhibited good stability in solvents and outstanding mechanical properties and transparency, with potential for utility in optical and electronic sensors. Moreover, in vitro and vivo evaluations demonstrated that these new resulting collagen membranes had good cytocompatibility, biocompatibility, and degradability for potential applications in biomedicine. This work provides a new approach for collagen processing by liquid exfoliation with utility for the formation of robust collagen materials that consist of native collagen mesostructures as building blocks.

中文翻译：

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来自牛跟腱的液体剥离介观结构胶原蛋白作为胶原蛋白膜的构建块


中尺度组件在天然胶原组织中组织，以实现卓越且多样化的性能和功能。在这项工作中，采用一种简便、低成本、可控的液体剥离方法，使用氢氧化钠（NaOH）/尿素水溶液系统，通过冻融循环和超声处理，直接从牛跟腱中提取这些胶原介观结构。使用该过程收获了一系列直径为 26-230 nm 的胶原原纤维，并在偏光显微镜 (POM) 下进行原位观察并使用分子动力学模拟揭示了 NaOH/尿素系统对肌腱胶原蛋白的影响。 FTIR 和 XRD 结果证实这些胶原原纤维保留了 I 型胶原的典型结构特征。然后将这些分离的胶原原纤维用作构建块来制造独立式胶原膜，该膜在溶剂中表现出良好的稳定性以及出色的机械性能和透明度，具有在光学和电子传感器中应用的潜力。此外，体外和体内评估表明，这些新产生的胶原膜具有良好的细胞相容性、生物相容性和可降解性，具有在生物医学中的潜在应用。这项工作提供了一种通过液体剥离加工胶原蛋白的新方法，可用于形成由天然胶原介观结构作为构建块的坚固的胶原蛋白材料。